


Shatter

by virtueofvice



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Dubious Consent, F/M, Infidelity, Manipulation, Power Imbalance, Sex Magic, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:46:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 28
Words: 35,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3829363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtueofvice/pseuds/virtueofvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Gold and Regina play things very close to the vest indeed as spiraling intrigue and dark deviance engulf those they love and hate the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Last posting had 1300+ hits before accidental deletion. Let's see if we can get there again. Update: Well done and thank you!
> 
> Youtube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6I6zzL4wr77WsdD7ICvfXysGxYQ2P6ka
> 
> 8tracks Playlist: http://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/shatter

It's true what they say about marriage, you know. It is a contract; an ancient, binding agreement, a sacrament that must be honored. But not in the way you've been told. There are none of these silly distinctions - _man shall not lie with another man_ , and all that. Such things are trifling irrelevancies in the face of the larger picture. Marriage is a joining of houses, a combining of resource and forces; presenting a united front to the rest of the world. Love? Oh, aye, true love is a wondrous thing; pure and undiluted by concerns of power and intrigue. But marriage… marriage is something else entirely. Marriage is just another word for making a deal.


	2. Chapter 2

A wedding in small-town Maine is a big deal. In early spring, the skies are usually a steely grey and overcast in the mornings, the watery sunlight burning away the cloud cover to a milky pale afternoon. This particular morning, wherein our story begins, dawned much the same - but in sharp contrast to other, similar mornings, the chilly hush was broken by the bright peal of churchbells.

It mattered little that the wedding taking place was of two very secular individuals, that the bride in a white pantsuit looked sharp and keen and untouchable as a knife edge; that her groom's eyes glimmered only a little more coldly than the large diamond on her left hand. It was irrelevant that the proposal, if it could be called that, had come out of nowhere; and no one in the town had seen a less likely match in their lifetimes. It was a match made in hell, some joked; but then, they deserved each other. And for all that, the pews in the church still filled up to watch their mayor wed, without much ceremony, the town landowner and loan shark. After all, a wedding in small-town Maine is a big deal.

Regina stood straight and regal at the altar, her head high and expression haughty; eyeing her bridegroom with the wary distrust one usually reserves for venomous serpents. Her counterpart merely smirked back at her, head cocked to one side, leaning easily on the polished gold head of his cane. Her throat was tight with unspoken vitriol, determination to satisfy this farce carving her features from white marble. As the Justice of the Peace - royal scribe and all-around dustrag, once upon a time - droned on before the unlikely pair, the mayor's mind drifted back to the previous week, and to the conversation on which all of this rested.

She had stepped into her office on a Tuesday morning, harried and irritable, her heart hurting from the latest row with Henry. Shutting the stark white double doors behind her, she rested her back against the cold wood and shut her eyes, taking several deep breaths. This was the life she had wanted, had fought and killed for… But it was misery.

"Rough morning, dearie?" Spoke a familiar voice, and for a single moment - during which her blackened heart skipped a beat - she expected the question to be followed by a breathless little titter. A chill ran down her spine, as it did sometimes in the presence of the Dark One. The curse had been executed flawlessly - she would not have risked her father's blood on her hands if she had been anything but absolutely certain - but somehow, he knew. In moments like this, she caught glimpses beneath his new persona as if they peeked through tears in a cloak. It was impossible, and often she dismissed the thought - in her highest moments, when all was well and she felt safe and comfortable in her ivory tower - but in this moment, she was sure. It was in his tone. He knew.

"What are you doing here, Gold?" She snapped imperiously, clicking across the marble floor in sensible black pumps and depositing her briefcase on her desk. She opened it and began retrieving papers for the day's work, ignoring his presence as if it hadn't unnerved her. He knew better, of course; had always known better. His presence unnerved everyone. "I'm quite sure I don't owe you rent." This last a scathing quip, as the town hall and mayoral manor were among the only structures in Storybrooke that Gold didn't own.

"I just thought I'd drop by and see how my favorite pupil is doing."

Her hands stilled on the papers as his words met her ears, the ticking of the clock on the mantlepiece loud as the moments stretched out into a pregnant pause. Finally she continued shuffling files around, the expression on her face shuttering closed, dark red manicured nails clicking on the wood of her desk as she seated herself behind it. "I don't know what you're talking about, Gold; you've never taught me anything but inherent distrust. In which I am quite adept, so if it's appreciation you're craving..."

The armchairs in front of her desk had been designed to be uncomfortable. They had a specific purpose; to skew the playing field, to make anyone who came before her throne in this world as plagued by a sense of _unbelonging_ as they had been in the last. But Gold sat easily, a smirk playing across his lips, both hands folded calmly on the head of his cane. He stared at her, waiting for the facade to drop. When the seconds had started to stretch out in an improbably long silence, he huffed a short, impatient sigh. "Let's cut the shit, shall we, Regina?" A smirk, the glinting pleasure of a cat who has cornered his prey and has all the time in the world to make the kill. "Or should I say, your Majesty?"

A sudden roaring in her ears, as the blood rushed to her brain in a panic and her eyes watered. Her throat nearly closed in a choking rush before she remembered one crucial detail - a world without magic. Rumpelstiltskin could have crushed her like a bug, had he discovered her deception; for all her talent and resolve, she was a woman still and he… he was a demon. But this was Mr. Gold, and in this world… He was calculating, and cruel; and she knew nothing in this or any world would elevate him above murder. But, for the moment at least, in this office - he could not harm her.

So she pasted on a smile, and tilted her head in acknowledgement, as if greeting an old friend or acquaintance who had never quite proven trustworthy. "So you know. How interesting." And it was interesting. She had no idea how he had discovered the truth, or for how long he had known it. It was possible he had been aware of this trap from the beginning, aware when - thanks to her own elixir of forgetting - even she herself had not been. Given some of his past actions, which had seemed hideously coincidental at the time, the idea was not unlikely.

"Oh, yes," Gold replied with false cheer, and again she heard the echo of that mad titter behind his words. "I know all manner of interesting things. Such as the location of the psychiatric ward where you've been keeping Belle, who it seems is very much alive - or was that a secret?" His eyes blazed, and she felt her skin crawl, swallowing hard to hide the rapid pulse in her throat. Here, was terror. He had loved the girl, she knew - of course she knew. His "one flicker of light in an endless sea of darkness," it had given Regina perverse satisfaction to steal the girl away. She had been saving the pretty young thing for a rainy day, a diversion, a fitting punishment for the imp who had given her so much and taken so much from her. But now…

He continued, tone bland as if he were discussing tax season. "I think you'll find the nurse you kept in your employ rather difficult to locate… As by this point she's not in one location, but several." Gold examined his fingernails, and she had a sudden, vivid image of the blonde orderly from the wing beneath the hospital, always so complicit in Regina's dark whims, keeping Belle in captivity, and in stasis, for over thirty years. A woman, viciously disassembled now like a broken doll, buried in a shallow grave for her part in keeping Rumpelstiltskin from the woman he had once loved. Regina was cruel - the moniker "Evil Queen" had been granted fairly, and not for nothing. But her cruelty had been learned at the feet of a master, and it was the chilly immutable rage behind his pleasant expression that told her she still had a great deal to learn.

"So I assume you'll be riding off into the sunset with your true love, then." She mocked cruelly, vicious sarcasm her only response to being so totally and unexpectedly beaten. The Queen's best defense against possible downfall was simply to ignore it, to spit in its face and claw her way back to the top once again.

"Oh no, Regina, it's not that simple." He hissed. "You see, Belle isn't herself these days. Curse memories, you see. And now that things are in motion again…"

She started, sitting upright in her chair. She had felt it as well, the subtle change in seasons, small things that differed from the established pattern of each endless, repetitive day. Things were in motion again, some powerful outside force was disrupting the paralyzing sameness of the curse - the Regina buried deep inside the Evil Queen, the one that still yearned for freedom, rejoiced at the possibility of change, of challenge. But the woman who had cursed her world for vengeance, who clung to her authority and her son by a few gossamer threads stretching ever thinner - she sat upright, spine straight and slender hands tense on the desktop. "What do you know?"

Gold looked bored. "As I said, many things. Such as where your son is headed today."

"Don't talk nonsense," she hissed out through clenched teeth. "He's in school."

"Is he?"

Her eyes flickered from him to her briefcase, where her cellphone waited, innocently silent, in an inner pocket. She could call Henry, just to make sure all was well, to check in on him - but no. She forced her spine even straighter and glared at Gold. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"He's bringing her back, you know."

"Who?"

"His birth mother."

Shock and horror shuddered through her, and she stood. "No."

"Oh yes. He's headed there now. No need to look so concerned, he'll arrive safely. After all, some things are just fate." Titter, titter.

"What do you want, Gold?" She snarled, patience burned away in the ferocity of maternal possessiveness and the anxiety of watching her plans unravel.

He studied her carefully, vaguely amused. "Marry me."

She scoffed, a most unladylike sound coming from the polished and pristine Mayor of Storybrooke. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, make no mistake, dearie," he replied, standing and leaning toward her so his words were spoken like poison dripping from a dreamshade vine inches from her face. "There's no one I'd like less to be bound to in matrimony. But dark times are ahead, and if we won't help one another then at least let's not hinder."

A toss of her head, the queen of old offended by the audacity of a common huckster. "You're insane."

"Beside the point," he snapped with that same familiar disregard for mental stability. "Do you love your son, Regina?"

The word came out breathless, almost a laugh, as if this were a laughing matter. "What?"

"You're losing him. Every day he drifts further from your reach and closer to the imagined ideal of his birth mother. Your perfect little family is crumbling."

Regina bit the inside of her lip as her eyes grew glassy with grief and concern. Henry was her weak point, the soft underbelly, and it was into this bleeding heart that Rumpelstiltskin pushed his blade.

"Agree to marry me, and I will do all in my not-insignificant power to ensure that Henry stays in your life. Decline," Here he lowered his voice to a deadly whisper, leaning across the desk that divided them in an intentional violation of her personal space, "And I will ensure that you never see the boy again."

She did not argue that his threats were beyond his capability. There was no point. Rumpelstiltskin or Mr. Gold, there was no safer option - the two were alike in every way that mattered. Even here, shackled by the laws of physical possibility that constrained this tiny, petty world, Gold was a monster. He liked Henry, in an abstract way; had given the boy a toy ship once when the lad was five and had wandered bright-eyed into his shop. But liking was not a weighty thing; vengeance was much more substantial. She knew that if it were in his best interest to do so, he would cut out her son's heart in front of her. Or bash in Henry's fragile young skull, delicate as a robin's egg, with the gold head of the cane which he now caressed absently, awaiting her answer.

And magic… He had no magic now, she was almost certain. She herself had barely any, and that locked up in her vault, separate from her as her mother's heart or Pan's shadow ( _"When you see the future, irony is everywhere."_ ) But as he'd said, things were changing. Time was moving forward, if at a snail's pace. The curse's hold was weakening, and magic could slip through the cracks of another world at any time and turn her house of cards to shambles. A Dark One with his powers fully restored, working against her… It was a thought that did not bear consideration.

She lifted her chin, defiant even in the face of defeat. "Let me see the contract."

He withdrew it from an inner pocket and handed it over, the flair of the old days not entirely absent from the fluid gesture. In it were information clauses - a binding agreement for each to share any information that directly contradicted the interests of the other. And constraints on magic - show the document to any mortal lawyer, and their eye would probably skate right over the tiny article, unable to even see that which their small minds could not comprehend. But Regina saw it, and her hackles raised.

"You expect me to marry you because I'll then be prevented from using magic to work against your interests? Forgive me, I left my blind gullibility at home today." She held out the contract, shaking the paper impatiently in a demand he take it back.

"Aye, dearie; but then - in the spirit of marital cooperation," Here his words became a drawl, purring out in a hatred so raw it was almost sensual. "I'd be prevented from using magic against your interests as well." He cocked his head at her, the vaguely unhinged Dark One of old flickering like a shadow behind his eyes. "And between the two of us, I think you'd be getting the better end of the deal." His eyes, richly brown rather than the mad gold gleam that had watched her for decades, ran up her body from stylish Louboutin heels to glossy raven black hair, with the expression of a man apprising a new piece of horseflesh - and finding it wanting.

She drew back in shock, the document drooping in her hand like a lowered blade. The Dark One, agreeing to be gelded, bound by his own contract… it was a tempting offer, her seething hatred at his insulting stare notwithstanding.

"I won't live with you." She snarled, as if the very idea was repulsive, which it was; though for deeper and more convoluted reasons than could be stated.

He chuckled, no mirth in the sound. "I think I can survive the absence."

She hesitated, bit her lip; for ten seconds she was again the maid in her twenties that had stumbled on the precipice of her magical education before, in a swirl of black, leaping off of it. Then her expression closed down again, lips pressed tightly together in a decisive line. "Fine."

A smirk of acquisition curved his lips, that same old gleam of satisfaction when a deal has been struck. "Excellent." He handed her a fountain pen which, when she touched the nub to her infinitesimally trembling finger, welled with a drop of ink as red as blood or apples.

"Sign here."

"Ever the romantic, Gold." Regina, once Queen of the Enchanted Forest, hissed like a trapped feline. Brandishing the pen, she shot him a look of deepest loathing, bent over the desk, and signed. As the letters of her name bled into the paper - of a grain so fine it was nearly parchment, with simple, elegant gold lines embossed at the margins - Rumpelstiltskin smiled.

And so it was that the Evil Queen found herself standing at the altar, on a cloudy morning in early spring, in a sleepy New England town. She spoke the words of betrothal before witnesses to the man who knew her best and whom she hated the most, and lifted her gaze to watch his frigid, intent expression with a rapidly dawning sense of doom.

"I do." He replied, and when the Justice pronounced them man and wife, turned on his heel and left the little church half a step ahead of her.

They met on the steps, and stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the gravity of the contract that now bound them. There was no magic in this world, but there was power nonetheless, a weight that was palpable in the agreement that stretched between them like an overwrought harp string.

"So?" She demanded, uncharacteristically at a loss. "Now what?"

He looked at her as if she were something unpleasant dragged up from the river. "So now I go about my business, and you stay out of my way." The head of his cane flashed in the struggling early light, incongruously bold against the jet black of his tailored suit, as he left her on the church steps and walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a good day. Regina mounted the worn marble steps to the mayoral office, enjoying the novel presence of warm sunshine on her face. The coffee from Granny's, piping hot in the cardboard cup she clutched in her hand, was unusually palatable. Even her briefcase seemed lighter, the killer heels which tortured her shapely legs daily were almost comfortable.

The reason for her joy was deep and profound, welling up in her throat like a delighted laugh that she choked back and hid under her typical impassive mask. It wouldn't do for others to know of her relief, her soaring pleasure. The change, if made obvious, would be like… Well, it would be like magic.

Bowing her head to unlock the main doors, she allowed herself a tiny smile when the sooty sweep of her hair obscured her face from common view.

The mayor had a ritual. Every morning, when rising from her bed, she would sweep an arm toward her drapes in an imperious gesture. And every morning, for decades, she had been met with nothing in response. Not a twitch. A shiver. The slightest breeze. At first, in those early months as she learned to tolerate this wretched world, it had been a desperate attempt to regain the power she had lost. But it had become an ironic game, over time - no longer expecting anything at all, she would wave one hand in a lazy dismissal whilst covering a yawn with the other. Every day, wave. Every day, nothing.

Until this morning. Regina had, while putting on her slippers, flicked a hand carelessly at the curtains - and been immediately blinded by the brilliant white sunlight of a spring morning just past dawn.

Her face a caricature of shock, she had raced downstairs - for once not disappointed to find Henry already off to school, without bidding her goodbye. Feeling the rush of excitement, of joy that came of using magic again after so long, she set her power to several simple tasks. Turning the faucet on and off. Moving a chair. 

Bringing an apple sailing to her hand, then banishing it to the basket again in a puff of smoke. But when she tried to move the sofa, she sagged, her cheeks paling, and had to rest.

But so what? Magic was like a muscle, her loving husband had taught her that. And her muscles hadn't been flexed in thirty years. Considering her magic had been back for less than eight hours she thought moving a bit of fruit around was a decent trick.

Buoyed by these thoughts, she unlocked the inner door to her office and stepped inside, flicking on the lights with one outstretched hand before turning around.

Gold sat calmly in the chair behind her desk, hands braced on his cane, looking as if he had all the time in the world and nowhere he'd rather be.

"Gold." She snarled, her good mood dropping through the floor with the force of an anvil. Her stomach followed after, a dizzying uncertainty draining away her confidence till there was a deep, black void in its wake. If magic was back, how much of the town was affected? How much did Gold know?

He inclined his head, "Regina." And the deadbolt snapped into place behind her.

"So." She approached slowly, circling the outer edge of the office like a woman skirting a mad dog. "I see you've noticed the change in our little town this morning. What gave it away?"

"A feeling, dearie," he replied, gazing at her with a steady loathing that was almost amiable in its dependability. He had been looking at her thus for years. "Just a feeling."

"I don't remember requesting a meeting, _husband_ ," she bit out, setting her briefcase down. Regina straightened her spine in a haughty gambit. It would never do to let him know she was afraid.

"Won't be long, my dear." Gold returned, sneering, and snapping his fingers presented a parchment from whatever pocket dimension held his contracts when they were not in use. The small show of magic was a warning, an unnecessary reminder that when it came to sorcery, Rumpelstiltskin was always in top form. "Just something we need to discuss regarding our agreement."

"What about it?" She prompted, impatient.

"This clause here." Long fingers very politely gestured to the paragraph in question, a move so uncharacteristic that she raised her eyebrows at him before leaning forward to read the legal script.

 **Consummation.** The word stood out in bold gothic copperplate, as alarming as if the parchment had spoken aloud, and she gripped the edge of the desk in a momentary bid for clarity. The marriage shall be considered invalid (with all its attendant concessions null and void) in the event of failure to consummate.

"No." Regina snapped flatly, waving the contract away. "Absolutely not. I am not sleeping with you, Gold."

"I've no intention of sleeping, dearie, that's why we're here and not at your lovely manor. Now have a seat," he indicated the desk's polished white surface, "Please."

Her body complied without thinking, and it was only when her trim rear and thighs were flat against the cool surface of the desk that she realized the cause, and swallowed. "Your pleases still pack a punch, I see."

"Indeed." He tapped his cane against the floor once, twice. "So."

Crossing one leg over the other in an attempt to reassert bodily autonomy, she glared at him. "If you knew it would work then why didn't you use it when you wanted that contract signed?"

Gold shrugged, absently brushing imaginary dust from the sleeve of his suit. "The nature of magical contracts, dearie. It had to be your choice, ultimately. As does this… consummation." Only that dark brogue could make a single word sound so… distasteful. Regina pressed her lips together and swallowed again.

"Forget it, Gold," She snapped, words more brash than she felt, her bravado flimsy and flat as a stage backdrop. "I'm not a lovesick bookworm and I will _not_ fuck you willingly."

His eyes, rich and tobacco-brown and generally lit with an incongruous warmth, dilated to dead black and narrowed as she dropped a thinly veiled insult to Belle. His Belle, who was lost inside the fickle fake heart and sequined miniskirts of a barfly named Lacey… His Belle, whom this bitch queen had locked away and left to be forgotten. His lips wanted to twist into a snarl. Instead, he smiled. Rising from the seat he had usurped, he strolled slowly around the desk, pausing to stand directly before her.

She regarded him with her head tilted back, as if leaning away from something offensive, as he fired his final volley.

"Well, Regina. You know how old-fashioned these legal documents can be. I'm afraid it's rather specific on the definition of consummation." He leaned forward, making no effort to conceal the lazy line of his gaze as he took in the curve of her calf, the press of her thigh against the summerweight business suit, the silver chain glittering demurely at her throat. "So I'm free to use any methods at my disposal to coerce your compliance," here he lowered his voice, bringing his lips to her ear, "As long as you beg for it in the end."


	4. Chapter 4

Rumpelstiltskin leaned back to observe the mayor with a bemused expression, before tapping his cane once, sharply, against the marble floor. Fine gold thread lashed out to bind her, thrumming with tension and cutting into the tender white flesh of her wrists. From beneath the desk, two more cords of gold whipped out to loop her ankles; all four strands pulled taut, splaying her struggling form on the desk for his delectation. Regina fought against the bonds, the tendons in her neck standing out as she sat up as far as the thread would allow. She glared at him, dark eyes wild with outrage and fury, painted lips twisted as if she would spit venom into his face.

"I am your most hated enemy-" She hissed at him, face bloodless with impotent rage; refusing to let him see her fear, the abiding terror of the truly helpless. She splayed her fingers, twisting her wrists, feeling magic shoot through her in a brief flare, then fizzle out like a wet charge on a stick of dynamite. There wasn't enough left in her to stop him. Not enough left to do anything, really. Pathetic.

He calmly removed his jacket, laying it over a chair. Removing his gold cufflinks, he dropped them into his vest pocket and rolled up his sleeves, looking for all the world like a man about to take on an unpleasant task. Her struggles left him unmoved, but her vicious assertion curved the thin line of his mouth with a fleeting smirk. "Don't flatter yourself, Regina. You overestimate your own importance..."

"I'll bet you can't even get it up." The words rolled out in a growl of disgust, she who had been Queen clinging to haughty derision.

"And yet underestimate your charms." A twist of his lips that could have been a sneer. "I'm sure I'll manage, your Majesty. Now shut your mouth. Please."

Eyes blazing with fury and humiliation, she had no choice but to comply. A snap of his fingers had the gold thread pulling taut, slamming her back flat against the surface of the desk. The buttons on her smartly tailored suit sprang loose, blazer and oxford parting to reveal an expanse of creamy white skin. A tiny constellation of freckles - just three minute pinpricks - decorated the area around her navel, this tiny detail lending realism to the stage show. Gold studied the view with apparent interest, his hand pausing midair as if poised for another snap. He tilted his head, hooded eyes taking in this new vista from the surprisingly delicate sweep of her collarbone, to the red lace - of course, it would be red - cradling full breasts, to the smooth slope of her stomach and crest of her hipbones. How… unexpected.

Which was absurd, of course. Regardless of his personal loathing for the sorceress and rival his student had become, it was unlikely that anyone could deny Regina's appeal when she was in her element. That element being rage, naturally- and here, she was drowning in it. Each sleek line of muscle taut, her skin quivering, lips bloodred and eyes black in a face white as alabaster; a study in murderous intent. If by some accident of fate the tables turned, and she regained her magic at the moment his faltered, she would slaughter him with a sense of vindication and almost erotic pleasure. That thought, ultimately, was what stoked the smoldering embers behind his eyes into flame.

Gold's expression gave Regina pause, her futile battle against the gilded bonds stilled as she watched him with an expression of dawning understanding. He was eyeing her like a meal upon one of his golden platters. In the knowledge of such hunger, such base appreciation, an unwilling blush flared red across her cheekbones and down over the curve of her breasts. It had been a long time since anyone had dared to look at her like that. Unable to turn her head fully against the chill solidity of the desk, she nonetheless cut her eyes away and refused to meet his gaze.

"You're blushing, dearie." He drawled lazily, the words a caress and a barb.

"Go to hell." Her parry was a tight snap, the barest quaver in her voice.

Thin hands smoothly untying his tie, he chuckled softly, stepping around the desk till he stood over her head. He bent forward, for a single heartbeat looking as if he would kiss her forehead, before tying the length of fine burgundy silk around her eyes in a blindfold. "And to think, your Majesty," he murmured in her ear, "We all assumed you had no shame left."

Safely concealed beneath the blindfold, lost beneath the paradoxical irony of his control, a single tear squeezed out from beneath sooty lashes and bled through silk in the dark. The deep breath she took a moment later, almost unaware she'd been holding it as he hovered in a predatory lean over her vulnerable body, betrayed none of her uneasiness, none of the cutting shame and anxious anticipation of cruelty coursing through her hidden veins. Her regal composure was a sight to be admired, as so many sights were proving to be.

Long moments stretched into a shadowed eternity as she waited, forcing herself to remain still despite the strain to quiver with tension. She relied on her body, as all mortals do; trusting her flesh to not betray her. Counting on the sheer force of her outrage and revulsion to keep her spine straight. And if, when his touch came, it had been in a region more intimate, more forbidden - she may still have resisted. As things were…

The assault was excruciatingly slow; insidious and unexpected. His fingertips fluttered lightly over her lips, and she closed them firmly. Not daunted, he swept the pads of his thumbs over her temples and pressed gently, fingertips tracing the elegant arcs of her eyebrows above the silk of his tie. _What the hell are you doing, Gold?_ This tenderness was unwanted, unwarranted. She had expected a quick, perfunctory fuck; not this assault on her senses and sensibilities.

His touch probed along her jaw, feather-light; and when sliding down over the tense muscle and tendon of her neck, suddenly pressed down. A rotating, massaging motion, and a great swell of tension rolled from beneath his fingers and harmlessly away. Her lips parted, unbidden, uttering a soft moan.  
Immediately she clamped her traitor mouth shut, but the damage was done. Gold had a chuckle like a panther's growl, a low and dangerous rumble. "I have all the time in the world, Regina." He warned, what was patently a threat sounding like a sweet promise when wrapped all in black velvet. He touched warm hands to her skin again, sweeping them in a downward arc over the planes of her neck, cupping the curve beneath her hair, dragging probing fingers over the slope of her trapezius muscles. She struggled against the sigh that breathed out and ruffled the sweep of his silvered hair tickling her cheek. A bitter victory was won when the moan she stifled refused to remain silent but instead transmogrified into a tiny whimper. She heard him exhale, a sound of something that resembled astonishment which she didn't know what to do with.

"I expected more resistance, Your Majesty," He mocked, but when the hands he'd laid on her belly lifted as if to leave her, her spine rose to follow. She bit her lip till a gleam of blood pearled at the tip of her neat white canine, and as Gold's eyes dragged over the vision before him, his gaze caught at the spark of crimson and he shut his eyes to master himself.

"Well." He commented, as her hips and spine flattened themselves against the desk in a fruitless bid to escape his notice. "Isn't that interesting." The chill of metal against her breastbone and flashing over her clavicle; a tiny gold knife with which he sliced away the flimsy lace concealing her before tucking the scraps into his pocket absently. The knife vanishing into the unknown abyss from whence it had come, she flinched as his fingertip traced a burning line from her bloodied lower lip, down over her throat, pausing on its languid journey between her breasts to tap, thrice, on her sternum.

"Your heart's racing, Regina. Frightened?"

"Of you?" She snarled, lashing out and fighting the bonds in a brief and showy flare of futility.

He only smirked, and bent his head. His lips, blazing hot, whispered along the elegant column of her throat, burning a trail along her jaw till she thought he would kiss her. He did not, exactly. He nipped lightly at her lower lip, swollen where she had bitten herself, and swept his tongue over the ripe curve, tasting her blood. Apparently something in the flavor pleased him, because her sharp gasp was harmonized with an approving growl.

Heat radiated from his palms as he placed them on her belly once again, smoothing over her trembling flesh, up her sides as if quieting a nervous mount. He stroked her ribcage, pressure too firm to be ticklish as he skirted the delicate arcs and brought his palms up to cup her breasts. The gesture was a parody of anything she'd been expecting, the gentle, heated drag of calloused skin against her sensitive flesh pulling forth her first, shuddering, involuntary - "Oh!" A gasp against the smirking curve of his lips, he stole a kiss as she kindled, tasting the blood adorning her mouth once more before she regained her footing and seized his lower lip in her teeth. She bit him sharply before he growled in warning and pressed a firm hand over her throat.

"Careful, dearie." He hissed, but for the first time since his one-sided conquest began, sounding audibly shaken. Regina's inner tigress, tail lashing in a gilded cage, roared in triumph.

"Get on with it, Gold." She snapped. His raised eyebrow was wasted on the now-wrinkled burgundy of his necktie.

"Are you submitting, then?" He queried politely, hands leaving her at once. "You consent to this… consummation?"

Her glare of distaste and frustrated fury was equally wasted, but she pressed her lips together and tried to look away from him (though she could neither look nor see). "No."

"I see."

His lips, when they closed over her nipple, were cold as winter. She gasped, the sound loud in the sudden silence, and strained upward despite her best efforts to the contrary. Her sensitive flesh pebbled in arousal so fast it was embarrassing, and she twisted in effort - though whether the effort was to escape or to present more of her demanding flesh to him was a matter of some internal debate. His mouth… For his mouth, which had been like fire, to suddenly turn so cold…

 _Magic._ Of course. A spell. An incubus hex, perhaps. Her inner tigress roared again, this time in mingled exultation and outrage, that he dared to use such magic on her. He had gotten where he had no business being, underneath her skin, wrenching responses from her unwilling flesh with the practiced ease of an inquisitor.

"So what is it, Gold?" She hissed, her breath coming in harsh pants despite her best efforts. The position in which she was tied was not chosen with her comfort in mind, and her spine - as well as more delicate clusters of nerves - had been strained almost beyond enduring. "A potion? Another curse? What are you using to make me want you?"

He stilled, and immediately she sensed the trap she had set for herself and proceeded, with the oblivious abandon of the virgin-white princess she had never been, to step right into. His nose traced up the narrow valley between her full breasts, and she could almost hear his inner laugh, feel the curve of his mocking smile against the hollow of her throat.

"Not a spell, dearie," he smirked, drawing away. "Hate to disappoint you."

A crystalline tinkle was hideously familiar music in her ear, she recognized the rattle of ice cubes in a glass. Ice. He'd put ice in his mouth. The only magic at play; the magic that had bared and bound her.

Her pride rebelled, refusing to believe it, but even as she rejected the truth she knew any alternative was a lie. Rumpelstiltskin gloried in his magic more than any physical prowess. If he had a spell powerful enough to hold the Evil Queen beneath his thrall, he would have shared the information gleefully with his captive audience.

And then, of course, she felt his hands on her thighs. A passing light touch, at first, raising her skirt with the casual ease of a clinician. He stretched long fingers up over her flanks, hooking them beneath red lace and dragging what had that morning seemed like very reasonable panties down her legs. With a sharp twist the fabric ripped and gave way. These too went into his pocket, a movement she felt against the swell of her calf, though she did not see the detour they made past his aristocratic nose, nor the way the pupils of his eyes swallowed up the iris in a sudden, searing transition.

"Do you want me, Regina?" He asked calmly, as if querying about the weather forecast.

Pressing her lips together hard and swallowing a moan that, if audible, would have been utterly indecent, she shook her head.

"Really?" He sounded amused, vaguely chiding, as if watching a young girl fib about who had eaten the sweets. "So if I were to do this…" That damnable fingertip again, this time tracing up the velvet softness of her inner thigh, teasing over the hollow of her hip before sweeping back down, slowly, lazily, in no hurry, knowing that at his eventual destination he would find…

"Oh, Regina," he purred, and this was indecent, tone so darkly seductive that it was akin to a slow-burning rage. "I think you are a liar." The finger that had swept low, parting her folds in a coaxing caress, came back wet and gleaming. He tore the blindfold from her, and she blinked furiously at the light, dark eyes adjusting in time to see him raise his hand to his lips and - _oh, gods, you bastard_ \- lick the digit clean. His expression was one of smug satisfaction and unadulterated carnality.

"Do you want me, Regina?" He asked again.

"No!" She hissed, but her hips twisted forward, bucking toward the touch that had left her bereft. Her body throbbed hotly in shame, outrage, frustrated lust that she choked down with all the force of will remaining to her. She loathed him. He was a demon, a mockery of everything she had worked for, suffered and murdered for. She would happily rip his throat out with her even white teeth. But gods, no love had ever set her ablaze like this hatred.

Dropping his touch to her heat again, his gaze bored into her as if he could murder her with a thought. Staring down her body like the shaft of an arrow, she could see his erection pressed bold behind the tailored pinstriped wool of his trousers, and her head spun. She felt a finger thrust into her core, the pad of his thumb pressing down, circling, on her pearl; she arched and cried out.

"Very well." He muttered. "I see we still have some work to do."

*******************************************************

And so Regina Mills had her proverbial wedding night, on a sunny Thursday morning over a week after she married, and ended it in a disheveled heap behind her desk - hair mussed, lips red and swollen, crisp lines of her suit askew and rumpled. She laid her head in her hands and wept silently - not because he had taken her by force, but because he hadn't needed to. It would almost have been easier to bear if he had; for all her power, Regina had been just a girl once too, and well-acquainted with the hardships of women. But this…

She'd said _yes_. Her eyes widened, tears of horror and self-loathing spilling down her cheeks.

Though he was long gone, the contract satisfied and his business concluded, she could still see him in her mind's eye. He stood over her prone form, lean and dark and mouth glistening with the damning evidence of her arousal. He had all but shouted it at her, ferocity in every line, a study in depravity.

_"And now, Regina? Shall I fuck you now?"_

And she, a traitor in her own voice, had all but sobbed her assent, shaking beneath his hands. Her resolve had cracked and, at last, shattered beneath the screaming imperative of her body. Still, then, with his cock inside her and the contract fulfilled, she may have recovered her dignity. If she had not joined him in climax, had not seized onto her own pleasure with the greedy hands of the long-deprived. But he had driven her toward orgasm with the relentlessness of a stagecoach drover, and she had succumbed spectacularly to his ministrations.

Gold, of course, took her momentary but total surrender in stride, as if nothing less were due him. The deed completed and the terms of their agreement no longer in jeopardy, he washed his hands of the entire sordid scene; carefully dressing himself as she sprawled panting and broken on the desktop. He paused at the door, offering her a cryptic nod that meant nothing, and snapped his fingers. He had vanished from the building even before the circulation returned to her extremities.

Alone, finally, in her office, Regina bit down on her knuckles to stifle a sob of rage and despair, and unspeakable relief. Closing the last button on her fitted suit (now sans undergarments), she set about the daunting business of putting herself back together.


	5. Chapter 5

In the Enchanted Forest, there had once been a tavern slouching like a great foul-smelling beast on the outskirts of the western wood. It was said that its owner, or previous owner, or founder - the legends changed, depending on who you asked and how early in the night the question was posed - had been a great adventurer, who had gifted the inn with its outlandish name. But the years had not been kind. Ale had soaked into the warped and splintered floorboards with the same congenial alacrity as the barkeep's brain, and in time both were sullen and stinking with the residue of a lifetime spent badly.

In short, the Rabbit Hole was, and had ever been, a dive.

The low, one-story building had not been much improved by its transformation into a fixture of this world. While here there were such things as health inspections, code violations, and common decency, the Rabbit Hole seemed to entrench itself stubbornly beneath the radar of any and all scrutiny. It was not the sort of place a man like Mr. Gold would frequent. Or at least, not without a powerful lure.

Payday for the common folk was Friday, and it was rare that the blue-collar crowd - the Hole's usual patrons - would have anything to spend this late in the week. A Thursday night, one could expect the place to be mostly empty - yet an unusual hum filled the low-ceilinged, smoky room, and almost all the seats at the bar were full. A small crowd gathered around the billiards area, and as a handful of men jostled each other for a superior vantage point, the reason became clear.

Gold took in the sight an inch at a time, starting from the cherry red pumps prancing against the worn green felt of the pool table. The heels were so ludicrously high as to be almost en pointe, and tottered dangerously when she made a turn. A black denim miniskirt made ivory-white legs seem to go on forever, when in reality the girl above them was barely five feet. She wore a loose garnet shirt that shimmered in the light - never one for subtlety, was Lacey - and he could tell from the white slope of one shoulder and the bounce of her pert breasts as she danced that the girl felt about undergarments as she did about subtlety.

He didn't try to stop her. He knew, if not the first moment he laid eyes on Lacey, then within several moments afterwards, that the Belle he had known was a fragile ghost locked deep inside this strutting spectacle of a woman. But she was there, or at least, there had to be something of her left inside - the dark part of Belle she refused to acknowledge, the part that had wanted him before she chose to love him. Lacey, freed from Belle's good breeding and sense of propriety, had no such compunction about sharing her feelings. Like subtlety and underwear, propriety was another thing Lacey had no time for. A busy girl, was Lacey.

Without pausing to greet her - his presence would make itself known soon enough, in the urgent drunken whispers of other bar patrons who tried fuzzily to remember if they'd paid the rent - he took a seat at the short end of the bar. The bartender did not need to be prompted - Mr. Gold's order was always the same. Two highballs of whiskey that could pass for fine - very fine if one were generous - appeared with near-preternatural alacrity on the scuffed bartop. The routine was so consistent that he could predict nearly down to the second when the illustrious Ms. French would drop onto the barstool beside him.

_Three… Two… One._

She sidled up like an alley cat with murder on its mind, all gleaming white teeth bared in a cheshire grin not at him, but at the whiskey glowing amber in its tumbler. Her dearest friend. Gold thought wryly, and clinked glasses with her; setting his down without touching it while she threw hers back in a toss of auburn curls and throaty laughter.

"Not drinking?" She mocked him, raised eyebrow like a warning shot by way of greeting.

"Letting it breathe." The smirk he offered in return teetered on the edge of condescension. It was a look he would never have turned on Belle, not now. This was not Belle. Lacey wore his love's skin like an ill-fitting dress that nonetheless appealed in a backhanded way.

"And how is your lovely wife?" Her grin was sharp as knives, pale blue eyes bright with malice and magpie acquisitiveness. She wore cat-eye glasses with black frames, a small rhinestone sparkling on each upturned wing. She'd told him once, smoke rolling out between her lips, that she wore them because they made her look smarter. The irony was not lost on him. Lacey was sharp as a razorblade, if it suited her purposes.

"At the moment? Thoroughly ravaged." He sipped his whiskey as if the matter did not concern him, though as he closed his eyes to appreciate the scotch's smoky nose, the image branded on the backs of his eyelids was of Regina's fair skin bruising under unforgiving gold restraints.

"Does she know about me?" A twist of her hips, leaning forward to give Gold a generous glimpse into the shadowed place beneath her blouse. Painted lips, candy-apple red like her heels, pursed in a laughing pout that said she really did not give a damn what Regina knew.

The irony of the question curved Gold's lips but eluded her entirely. Did the Queen know about the boozy bespectacled ragamuffin wearing Belle's skin? The flashy girl with a troubling lifestyle who technically existed only because Regina had once willed it so? "She hasn't a clue."

Her grin widened, if that were possible, stretching the boundaries of a smile until it was just a baring of teeth. He caught a strange glint in her eye, flashing emerald behind kohl-framed blue, and he wondered if she might be jealous. Then he wondered if it mattered.

It didn't.

"Buy me another, then." She prompted, pressing a red-taloned hand to his arm. He raised a brow - patented reaction, and in many circumstances the only appropriate reply to Ms. French - at her easy familiarity. She was like Belle in many ways, but a dark, dirty variation; a princess dancing on pool tables.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to ask politely?" He sneered.

"Mummy's dead." She said cheerfully, swinging her feet like a child, shoes with their ridiculous heels still a good six inches from the sticky floor. "And now there's no one to protect the wee motherless moppet from the darker element." She ran probing fingertips down his lapel, gripping the fine fabric and dragging him closer so she could whisper in his ear. "So buy me another."

Her words were like honey, sticky-sweet, breath hot against his skin. He shut his eyes, feeling the pulse in his throat hum louder in response. Not Belle. No, not Belle. Belle would never be so demanding, so irreverent, so lush. If Lacey were anything, anyone else, he could have stayed away, respected the boundaries the curse had set up betwixt himself and his love. But it was her luxuriating lasciviousness that made her so addictive; the contrast of Belle's purity wallowing in deviance.

So he obliged her, handing over a black card to pay his tab and summon another pair of amiable amber companions for them both. This world was peculiar. In their own, gold was the most valued currency everywhere; its yellow gleam opened all doors. Here, small squares of plastic seemed the norm; with his own black variation designated as the epitome of wealth. The man, Mr. Gold; whom Regina had created to replace him in this life, understood the nature of digital finance and banking in this world's economy. Rumpelstiltskin, on the other hand, found the entire matter to be a bit absurd.

Lacey seized the glass as if she had a right to it, and tossed the whiskey back without hesitation. This time, he joined her; suddenly weary of the whole scene and eager to hasten its climax.

"Time for a smoke?" She suggested, and without waiting for a response hopped off the barstool and disappeared through a side door with a worn and thoroughly disrespected "No Smoking" sign nailed to its peeling surface. It was always like this. Lacey never looked back - the bounce in her step and sway of her hips assumed his complicity. The assumption was made correctly. He couldn't stay away from her. _Coward._

He found her in the alley behind the bar, baleful glow of the sodium arcs painting their sickly yellow gleam over her curls and the planes of her face. The streetlight hissed and whined in the surprisingly balmy night, and she exhaled a long plume of smoke in his direction as he made his appearance. She leaned against the hood of his Cadillac, one spike heel on the polished chrome fender as if daring him to comment. Heedless of invitation, Gold stepped forward till he stood almost between her legs, reaching out to snag the cigarette from her languid hand and place it between his own lips. He spared not a glance for this interaction, instead letting his eyes wander from her well-turned ankle, up over the small scar on her knee - which she had received long ago, a maid in the Dark Castle - to the way the shimmering garnet blouse draped over her breasts. She preened under his scrutiny, arching her spine back, letting loose curls tumble over her shoulders till they brushed against the hood of his car. Gold buried his free hand in her hair, tangling the ruddy dark locks in his fist and dragging her head back, the glowing tip of the cigarette in his mouth dangerously close to the creamy curve of her throat as he inhaled her scent and watched the flutter of her pulse, a thick moan rolling up and out through a scarlet smirk.

He cast the cigarette away, exhaling smoke like a dragon as he kissed her pliant lips. She was greedy, daring; breathing in the smoke that sighed out of him like a warning, trapping his tongue with the gentle press of teeth, fighting for dominance with a mouth that tasted of damnation and single-malt scotch. The hand in her curls twisted and tugged, his grip on her hip tightened with bruising intensity as he directed her to turn over. His touch left a burning trail down the gentle slope of her back and she purred like a cat, grinding the plump curve of her ass against him as he bent her over the Caddy's hood. Her heels skittered on the gravel for a moment before finding purchase, legs splayed like a willing sacrifice under the skirt that slid up over her hips like the irrelevant scrap of fabric it was. He pressed down hard along her thighs, over her hips, ripping off his second pair of panties that day. These were black lace, but fell to the tectonic shambles of macadam at their feet. He did not want to remember this encounter.

His knuckles ground against her wet heat as he opened his fly - Lacey was not a woman that demanded an unnecessary degree of foreplay from her lovers, which was excellent, for Gold was not in the mood to give it. He thrust into her without preamble, snapping his hips forward, using his weight against her for leverage to press her cheek against the glossy black metal. She let out a groan of sensual appreciation, rolling her hips back against him. His hand in her hair tightened and pushed her down harder against the hood, demanding her silence, but she merely returned with a ragged chuckle. She twisted in his grip, heedless of the yanking tension on her hair, looking back over her shoulder just enough to mouth the words - "Fuck me." They dripped from her lips like sweet sin from the honeypot, and he was lost.  
Gods, Belle… Not Belle. Didn't matter. She was slick and hot, starting to quiver and keen beneath him as he set a punishing pace. The Brougham was a luxury car, its shocks meant to take a beating and still deliver a ride as smooth as glass. But the great black beast rocked crazily as he pounded all his regret, all his fear and sorrow and self-loathing, into Belle's - Lacey's - sweet little cunt. Belle's body, there, her sheath gripping him tight as she flattened her hands on the hood in abject submission; but it was Lacey's moaning red mouth, Lacey's warm and willing arousal currently ruining his fifteen-hundred-dollar suit.

"Oh fuck, yes!" She swore, and he felt her flutter, then break apart under his hands. He uttered a growl that was not a name (he would not say it), a low, vicious thing bitten out between clenched teeth; hand leaving bruises on her hip as he gripped her cruelly tight and came inside her spasming body. There was a sort of vindictive pleasure in it - Lacey was not the mothering type, and would take steps to ensure she bore him no children without ever troubling him with the details.

If it were Belle… The thought made him squeeze his eyes shut, pulling away from her, leaving her gasping and rubber-legged on the hood of his car, ass and dripping pussy bared to the world. Or at least, the small corner of the world hidden behind the Rabbit Hole. He composed himself with the same eerie detached care he'd displayed earlier in the mayoral office, shuffling all the pieces back into place until the familiar facade appeared, impassive and unruffled again. He handed Lacey a gold-stitched handkerchief, which she used unabashedly to clean herself up before offering it back to him with a cheeky grin. He waved her away.

"Keep it, dearie." A gold cigarette case glowed like the grail in the dismal light of the decrepit streetlamp, and he lit two at once between gently pursed lips, offering her one. She accepted the offering with one hand while straightening her skirt with the other. Gold studied her for a long moment, finishing his cigarette as a cloud passed over the moon. Then, picking up his cane and swinging around her in a stride that was unintentionally jaunty, he opened the Caddy's door and climbed into the driver's seat. Lacey leaned against the driver's side headlight, smirking at him with deliberate antagonism.

"Get off my car, please, Lacey." Gold drawled. It was intended to convey annoyance, but he just sounded tired.

"What, are you leaving then?" She mocked, lighting another cigarette. Never one to do things halfway, was Lacey. He contemplated the effect Lacey's lifestyle would have on Belle's health, then decided he was in no position to question it. Monsters in glass houses...  
"Why," he scoffed, "Will you miss me?"

She pouted at him, then leaned forward, pressing her cleavage to the windshield with a laugh that was one part flirtation, two parts mockery. "I'll miss your money." 

That toothy Cheshire smile again, splitting her sweet face like a Glasgow grin.

An image of Belle, in a blue wool dress on a midsummer night, her eyes full of tears though he refused to look at her. _"I don't care about the gold."_

"You do say the damnedest things, Miss French." He murmured softly. "Have the bartender put it on my tab." The concession was his only farewell, putting the key in the ignition and feeling the Caddy rumble to life. He swung the long car out onto the main road, driving home in the darkness of a northern night and the engulfing abyss of self-loathing three hundred years in the making.


	6. Chapter 6

Monday morning found the mayor in rare form. Regina sank into the bathtub, deliberately putting to one side all thoughts of Gold and contracts. Painted toes peeked out of a luxurious mound of bubbles, and she allowed herself a tiny smile. Sleep hadn't come easily last night, so she'd abandoned it entirely - after the unmentionable and unmitigated catastrophe that had been her past week, a bubble bath in the wee hours of the morning was warranted. She decided to take a sick day. It was an indulgence she hadn't enjoyed in some time, but surely the town would survive without its de facto mayor for twenty-four hours. Nothing ever happened in Storybrooke.

Any plans to spend her day with Henry were quashed, however, when she ventured downstairs at first light and found him already gone. He'd left a note on the fridge - "Gone fishing with Emma, don't worry about me." Reaching for the phone with an angry huff, she hesitated, then let her hand drop. No sense in sending the sheriff to drag him back, it would only convince the boy more of the supposed malevolence hidden behind her maternal instincts. Further investigation showed that a crisp new twenty-dollar bill was missing from her purse, gone without her leave. How deeply upsetting that Henry would steal from her, when anything his little boy's heart desired had always been his for the asking.

Her mouth thinned to a line, brow furrowing. Gold. He'd failed to hold up his end of the bargain, and considering his attention to detail in other areas of the contractual provisions, she wasn't prepared to tolerate laxity.

The relaxation bestowed by her bath evaporated, and suddenly a day off seemed rather less appealing. Morning's crisp first breath found Regina in suit and heels striding down main street, though her steps carried her not to the town hall, but in the opposite direction, toward the street's terminus and Mr. Gold's shop.

*********************************

Business had been slow, though it could be excused as the sign on the door had only lately changed from **Closed** to **Open**. Gold's mind was on other matters this morning, worrying at the Gordian knot that was his contract with the mayor, his affair with the painted ghost in Belle's skin.

The painted ghost who was, at this moment, very alive and haunting the back room of his shop. Lacey had slipped in almost as soon as he'd unlocked the front door, as if she'd been hovering about in the alley awaiting an invitation.

"I haven't seen you at the Rabbit Hole, Mr. Gold," she offered in overture, a study in false politeness that glossed over the too-bright smile, the too-short skirt. Six-inch heels at eight-o'-clock in the morning; Lacey was a woman with no regard for convention. Or decency.

"I've been occupied," he returned, rearranging items on the counter as if it made a difference in the myriad disorganization that characterized his shop. "Marriage suits me."

Neither assertion was true, but it was worth the lie to see the look on her face; part fury, part nonchalance. Jealous. And wasn't that rich, when she'd forgotten everything they ever were. He watched her slink and sway along the edge of his vision, a mirage in technicolor. Coming to stand in front of him, she pulled his face to hers and kissed him deeply, tasting of cigarettes and the whiskey that must have been her only breakfast.

"Is that so?" She breathed against his parted lips, eyes wide open, and hooked her fingers beneath his belt as she dropped to her knees.

"Lacey." Gold warned, an exhalation of wasted breath. He was already hard, her small hands sliding over his stiffening length as she gazed up at him, all sooty lashes and spoiled innocence. She pressed her cheek against the fine black linen of his trousers like a child listening for a heartbeat, very deliberately rubbing her jawline, the feline curve of her cheekbone, against his erection. Her lips pressed against the seam of his zipper and he felt her hot moist breath like a violation.

He should stop her. His Belle, on her knees on a hardwood floor… But it was _not_ his Belle, as the universe insisted on reminding him. And he wouldn't stop her. The shop was a maze of furniture and tight corners, dusty silence and dark spaces, and Gold took advantage of the fact. Leaning against an antique cherrywood secretary, he gathered her hair, fingertips dragging along her scalp, twining auburn curls tightly. His hold on her hair was rough, as if he hoped to drag Belle out of the ether and back into her own body. But it was Lacey that gazed up at him, with eyes so blue it was like staring into the mountain sky on a cloudless day. Almost blinding. She met his eyes and smirked, drawing down his fly and guiding her prize to her lips. Mercy.

His eyes slid shut, head tipping back to rest unheeded on the hardwood cabinet. Gripping her hair with savage satisfaction, he thrust into her mouth and was rewarded with a surprised whimper as she choked. Yes. Like that. Punish the body for what the soul forgot; his diaphanous darling despoiled. He felt himself swallowed up in darkness, breathing it in through gritted teeth, harsh with pleasure and vindication.

When her mascara ran, lending her porcelain skin the ashen streaks of a refugee, it didn't hurt to look at her anymore.

***********************************

Regina passed the front door without a sound, finding the storefront empty, and swept around the side of the shop, sleekly pressed trenchcoat snapping sharply in a brisk wind. A light burned in the rear office, warm light in the dreary grey morning, and she entertained the possibility of catching Gold off-guard by entering through the little-used side door.

She passed a window glimmering with imperfections, the watery sunlight dancing over bubbles and warped places in the green-tinged glass. Compared to the glittering modernity of her office, this building was very old. The glass was distorted, and so she at first distrusted its transparency when her gaze fell on the scene within.

Her beloved husband leaned against a cabinet, eyes closed and a rapt expression on his hawkish features. Kneeling beneath him, supplicant to a debauched god, was Belle - or as she was known in this world, Lacey French. The little chit was performing enthusiastic - and admirably dextrous - fellatio.

_You twisted little imp._

She resolutely ignored the prickle of avarice that tripped lightly up her spine, and chose to write off as distaste the low, curling jealousy like smoke in the bottom of her mind. She couldn't fathom how they had come together, and in such a short amount of time, all things considered. The cursed persona inhabiting Belle's body was nothing like its original owner - it was much more likely that the two were entangled by lust rather than love.

 _Who could ever love a beast?_ Regina sneered, amused by her little private joke, even as her eyes narrowed at the tableau unfolding within. The girl's back was to her, bare knees on the worn wood floor - _how obliging_ \- and Gold's attention was undivided. So she indulged her curiosity, always one of her greatest weaknesses; dark eyes gleaming in guilty cupidity as she took in the detail of her voyeuristic experience. Her fingers rested lightly on the painted windowsill, just enough to keep her balance as her smart black heels rested on the uneven gravel beside the building. But her fingernails dug into the weathered wood, a compulsive curling in a greedy grab as Gold's hands, wrapped in auburn silk, started to shake. His loss of control was brief and rare, a sight she filed away to contemplate at a later time. When his hands had touched her, they had been steady as a surgeon's.

Her lips parted in a soft pout, white teeth biting down in a gentle press of sudden uncertainty, studying the French girl carefully as she rose on reddened knees and tottered in her high heels like a newborn foal. Gracelessness aside she looked mightily pleased with herself. Her smugness irritated Regina in the same vague way that her audacity did. Gold reemerged from his broken pieces as if by magic, and murmured some sort of brusque dismissal. Lacey seemed obliging in this as well, and turned to leave, though not without a certain scowl that spoke of dashed ambitions. Regina turned away and walked back toward the front of the shop, certain the French girl would be leaving at any moment. Gold was not a man to linger, even with the ghost of his once-upon-a-time love. Her head lowered thoughtfully, studying the pavement and the images behind her eyes, she almost walked into Lacey - still bearing the scent of sex and bourbon - all but fleeing past her out the front door, eyes averted from the mayor's notorious gaze that pinned citizens of Storybrooke like so many butterflies. Apparently the girl's bravado was as transient a thing as her affections. The little bell over the door tinkled in announcement of the queen's arrival, as she spared Lacey not a glance.


	7. Chapter 7

Gold sat behind his desk, peering through a jeweler's glass pensively. Belle - Lacey - proved harder to dismiss from his mind than his shop. The feel of her lingered with him; but more strongly, the color of her eyes, blue and blameless. _How ironic._ As if on cue, with that uncanny precision that was her peculiarity, the person he wished to see least blew into the shop - Regina in her element, the eye of her own storm.

"Ah, Regina. Shall I move some things, make a bit of space for your rage?"

"Gold." She inclined her head in a glossy pretense of politeness, large dark eyes gleaming with such resentment as to render the nicety to its basic form - an animal lowering its horns to strike. The direction of the nod happened to indicate that patch of floor which Ms. French had so recently occupied. "I'll bet you'd just love to see me like that." She needled him, tone dripping with derision from her darkly tinted trademark of a sneer.

He did not question her knowledge, nor entertain the possibility of denying his tryst. They knew each other too well. "The thought hadn't crossed my mind." He lied, a study in bland politeness as his eyes ground the deception into dust. _Though it would be nice to silence that mouth, for a change._

"What would Belle think?" She smirked, driving the knife in where she knew it would cut the deepest.

"You..." Gold pointed at her, mask of a man dropping for a moment to show the snarling beast. "You don't talk about her." He chuckled, shook his head, backing down from the bait. "Why are you here, Regina?"

She missed barely a beat, the flicker of lashes as her eyes looked first pained, then anywhere but at him. It would never do to let the beast smell blood. "Henry's with Ms. Swan today."

He offered an incredulous chuckle, ineffective balm to her vulnerability. "So you thought to seek my company instead? Well, I'm flattered-"

She cut across him with a literal gesture, white hands flashing through the air in a knifing, enough gesture. "You're contractually obligated to help me, Gold, now help me! Get rid of her!"

"Actually, Your Majesty, I'm required only to stay out of your way. And it wouldn't be in my interests to step in here - so, regretfully, I must decline."

The silence between them stretched long and taut, and it occurred to him that he had never before known a moment capable of encompassing so much hate. Regina's face was a study in stunned fury, stymied again by this most likely of opponents. Then she gathered herself, painted nails digging half-moons into her palms as hands curled into tight fists. In a moment she was pure Evil Queen, the identity settling around her like a well-worn cloak, armor against his treachery. He was almost proud of her.

"Typical." Regina hissed, lovely features contorting into a smile of such contempt that it was more a vicious baring of teeth than any human expression. Anger rolled  
off her in waves, the thin vein that marked her most volatile moments standing out on an alabaster brow. Her feelings were tumultuous, a jumble of resentment and rage, despair that she refused to acknowledge, and the fire low in her belly that had kindled as she stood before the window and looked in. She heard herself speaking as if from a great distance, blood rushing in her ears like the pounding of surf.

"I don't know why I even keep the contract," she sneered at him, that patented expression of distaste glossing over the flames behind her dark eyes. Loathing and lust warred in an incomprehensible dance, and she hated herself. "It certainly isn't for the sex."

He lowered the jeweler's glass he'd been peering into, shaking his head once with the muted expression of one who cannot believe his ears. Then he carefully set it down, and rose to his feet. He rounded the desk without breaking the contact between their eyes, turning the full force of his gaze on her haughty pretense. Regina lifted her chin and met it, though he had never looked more dangerous. "Is that so, dearie?"

"Indeed." That controlled, disdainful drawl; arms straight at her sides - stubbornly resisting the urge to fold them across her chest and protect her vitals.

"My dear wife," he purred, the hand caressing the head of his cane somehow a subtle threat. The solicitous incline of his head made her feel endangered. "Are you feeling neglected?" His sudden ardency was a thin mask over the more plain desire to throttle her lifeless. As he'd been speaking he'd been drawing closer to her, and now he breathed the words out against her upturned lips. She backed away, only to find the hard glass edge of a counter behind her, and raising a hand in her own defense only found her wrist encircled by his fingers. He raised his cane, the engraved head of it brushing against the peak of her breast, snug finespun linen and lace doing little to guard her skin from the chill touch. He felt more than heard her indrawn breath, the ghost of a flutter against his lips, her pupils dilating. She pressed her lips together and stared him down.

The gold cane traced over and over, almost absentmindedly, raising her nipple to pebbled hardness beneath the charcoal grey business suit. She refused to drop her gaze, refused to arch her back and let the long, pleasured sigh she bit down on roll out past her lips. Refusing, in fact, to show he had any affect at all on her, though the pulse in her throat fluttered madly.

He touched the gold to her lips, cold curve of its engraving pulling her full lower lip into a pout while she looked at him with loathing. "Kiss it." She curved her lip in a snarl, ready to spurn the suggestion in a flash of temper, when he raised an eyebrow. "Please."

Never taking her hateful gaze from his, she complied; smear of dark lipstick against polished gold, a whisper of mulberry wine. Feigned obedience, eyes blazing with murderous rage. She wrenched her wrist, but was rewarded only with the tightening of his fingers. His presence, crackling with power, kept her pinned against the cool glass behind her.

"Ah-ah, dearie. Play nice or there'll be a whipping in it for you." Gold raised the head of the cane again to her lips. "Lick it."

Regina felt her humid flesh heat and pressed her thighs together, slick and wanting in spite of herself. She would happily choke him to death, if she could ride him into oblivion while doing it. Betrayed by the dizzy spiral of her own arousal, she caught the bitter taste of cold metal sliding over her tongue as she complied. The brush of his hair against her cheek as he leaned closer hid his satisfied smirk.

He released her hand and murmured the words in her ear, so soft as to be almost subliminal. "Lift your skirt." When she did not yield, he pressed his jaw against her cheekbone, firm rasp of stubble over her fair skin, and added, "Please."

She obliged him grudgingly, bunching dark fabric in white-knuckled fists and dragging it up over firm thighs and a pert derriere pressed tense against the chilly glass counter. "The harder you make this on me, dearie, the harder it will be on you." He murmured paradoxically.

Her panties were a pale lavender, a ghostly echo of her lilac silk shirt, and he hooked the handle of his cane over them, dragging them downward. She resisted, but he ground the engraved gold against her clit, and with a soft moan that danced along the edge of self-loathing, she shut her eyes and raised her hips to comply. The head of the cane slid smoothly down her thigh, leaving a slight trail of wetness from its brief foray into her sex. The panties stretched between her knees, then stopped. Regina moved to kick them off, but a firm hand at her hip stopped her. She all but felt her skin blister beneath the heat of his regard. "Leave them. Turn around."

She glared at him incredulously, the request a dash of cold water on her smoldering nerves. "I'm not turning my back on you, Gold."

He offered her a look that brooked no discussion. "I assure you dearie, the danger is equivalent both fore and aft." She huffed and glared at him. "Now turn around, and bend over. Please." The please was added as an afterthought, and perhaps was only a boon to her sense of rebellion, for he had already seen the surrender behind her eyes and felt his blood thrum with it. Ever herself, however, Regina gave surrender incompletely, propped on her forearms as she glared at him from behind a spill of dark hair.

"All the way, Regina," he reprimanded sharply, and placed a surprisingly gentle hand at the back of her neck, pushing down gently. When her spine was straight over the counter, he gave the smooth curve of her buttocks a sharp smack with his cane.

An outraged yelp burst from surprised lips, and she glared back over her shoulder with eyes like daggers. "You son of a bitch." Her attempt to rise was greeted with a hand splayed firmly between her shoulderblades.

"Be still and shut your mouth, dearie, or I'll be forced to gag you." As a rule he wasn't fond of gags, they muffled both the undesirable sounds as well as those he rather preferred to hear. "Keep your legs apart." The matter-of-fact tone that was his trademark made crude statements into the burning sweep of a tongue over the shell of her ear, a throb of heat low in her belly. "I want those panties taut between your knees, Regina. If they slacken one inch," he tapped his cane sharply on the floor, "There will be consequences."

 _Seven._ Seven times she had provoked him, since entering his shop, so seven strokes she would have. When she struggled against the second as she had the first, he snarled at her. "Be still. Please." He counted them with exactitude, allowing seven seconds to pass between each cracking smack. After her first cry, Regina made an effort to stifle them, which was a bit of a disappointment. He could picture, however, her gleaming white teeth biting down on the wails he still heard in strangled echoes, punishing her full lower lip till it bled. She snarled curses out in a venomous stream-of-consciousness, a breathless halting vehemence that might have sounded like praise had she not been who she was. The remaining five strokes left livid red lines, outlines in white, across her truly spectacular porcelain ass.  
A long moment passed when the only sound was their breathing, hers shallow and quick, on the edge of gasping; his, harsh and loud even to his own ears. She had come close, at the end, to breaking his control and earning an extra stroke or two, profanities pouring from her lips in languages that didn't even exist in this world. 

But he mastered himself, and when seven seconds stretched into ten, then twenty, it became apparent that he was not going to strike her again. Regina cut her eyes to his, cheek still flat against the cool glass now condensing with her breath. "Can I get up now, G- oh. Ohh." She bit her lip and turned her face away from him, as if by avoiding his patient gaze she could deny the change he had wrought in her by touching the cold head of his cane to her torrid sex.

He slid the metal forward, the engraved head gliding easily between her slick folds. She rocked against it, the evil queen bedeviled by something as banal as desire. Gold swallowed a groan. Her very responsiveness, at war with her resentment, was what made her so appealing. She tried to close the distance between her knees, seeking her pleasure even as he drew it away again. "Damn you!"

"Too late, dearie." He leaned over her, the press of his clothed erection against her ass impossible to miss, hard as iron and pressing in a slow, deliberate grind as he murmured in her ear, "You see, Regina? I can make your body sing…" He rocked into her once more, then brought his hand down in a scalding slap, startling a jerking cry from her throat. "Or scream. You'd do well to remember that."

His hand caressing the firm, round curve of her ass, the cane pressed against her sex again, rubbing insistently against the little bud of nerves that held the keys to all her darkest secrets. She bucked against it, past the point of caring whether Gold won or lost as long as the sweet searing sensation curling upward from that stoked fire didn't stop. When orgasm hit her it was a slow burn, rolling through her in wave after wave that curled her toes in their black designer pumps and gave her gooseflesh. Rather than a gasp or cry, she let out a long, low moan, hands splayed on his countertop, hips gyrating slowly as she all but fucked his cane. A vision of wantonness. Gold, suddenly so hard it was painful, thought he had not seen anything as arousing in this or any world.

Carefully he withdrew his cane, a fresh white handkerchief polishing the head to gleaming spotlessness. Without regard for her eyes upon him, he brought the handkerchief to his nose and inhaled deeply. The scent made his head spin, though the only visible reaction was the close of his eyes and the twitch of his cock in tailored trousers that were doing their damnedest to conceal it.

"Now, if it please Your Majesty, get out."

There was nothing to say. Stinging lines and bright handprint on her ass speaking volumes, Regina pulled herself together, choosing not to look at him as she made her escape. _Bastard._


	8. Chapter 8

Granny had never really been a hospitable sort. Though she remembered none of her past life, and the reasons for her taciturnity, she often maintained the same brusqueness in this world - which made her position as owner of the bed and breakfast a ludicrous comedy of errors. She was lecturing Ruby ad infinitum when Regina swept in, the same well-meaning but ill-favored loop of generational gap rhetoric that hadn't swayed the teenage werewolf and would leave the waitress equally unswayed. The queen's entry stopped all conversation, a weird aural hiccup that made the ears pop with its abruptness, before talk resumed, stilted and awkward between customers. Granny turned her attention to the matter at hand, leaving Ruby to duck into the back of the diner and turn _her_ attention to the bus boy.

"Madam Mayor, what can I do for you this evening?" Granny's manner and tone clearly conveyed that she did not appreciate the other woman's presence casting a pall over the dinner rush. For once, Regina found that the feeling was mutual. The eyes on her were like dull scraping knives, stares and whispers aggravating her ragged nerves. Magic tingled like prickly heat along the skin of her arms, raising gooseflesh beneath the linen blend of her blazer. Home, an evening alone, sounded wonderful. She ordered a hamburger, fries, and cookies for Henry, sure that he would be ravenous when returning from his outing with Emma, in that way that young boys always are. For herself she ordered only a thick slice of cheesecake and a bottle of chardonnay. Packaging the items to go, Granny raised nary an eyebrow. Apparently even evil queens are entitled to the accepting silence of women who understand the power of a good cheesecake.

She nearly made a clean getaway, if not for the mop of auburn curls perched atop a tight dress and impeding her progress down Granny's front steps. Regina halted in her tracks, amazed that the chit had the audacity to stand in her presence and breathe her air twice in one day. Ms. French lowered her eyes, attempting to brush past her into the diner, but Regina reached out and gripped the steel doorhandle with black-taloned fingers. "Well. Fancy seeing you here. Are you following me, Ms. French?"

Lacey met her stare squarely, though she fidgeted in her high heels and placed her hands on her hips in a bid for assertiveness. "No. Seems you're following me."

"Is that so?" Regina chuckled, looking down at the sidewalk as if something on the concrete fascinated her. Dipping her head forward, she looked every inch the regal queen bowing to a subject - or a snake, striking at its victim. "Let me make this as monosyllabic as possible. Stay away from my husband." She hadn't known she was going to speak the words till they were spoken, but she held her rage like a banner and eyed the shorter woman as if she'd just been pulled from the queen's heel.

"Or?" Lacey spat the words like a teenager being grounded, all brash defiance and beringed fingers balled into fists.

Regina tilted her head, the smile curving like a moonrise over her lovely features nothing short of monstrous in its blatant anticipation of viciousness. "That, Ms. French, is a question you don't want answered. Have a nice night." Back poker straight, the evil queen exited, leaving a chastened and resentful Lacey to lick her wounds over a lager in Granny's.

*************************************

The house was dark and silent when her keys jangled in the lock, and for one guilty moment she hoped Henry had decided to spend the night with Emma. The very thought gave her pause, for it was a testament to how tired she was on every level that she'd rather see her son in the eager clutches of his birth mother than safe at home. She chastised herself and set about fixing his plate.

Henry had informed her voicemail that he would be home for supper, and while his little boy's voice - so close to the creaky breaks of puberty - tugged at her heartstrings, Regina felt the need to be alone like a bottomless exhaustion of the soul. Setting aside her own feelings, she fixed a tray for him with a mother's care, pouring a glass of milk and setting a polished red apple beside the cookies in a bid to tempt his appetite towards something healthful. The hamburger and fries were reheated briefly before she set the table, just in time to greet Henry as he walked in the door.

"Hi mom."

"Hello, sweetheart." She refrained from playing the wounded mother, accepting his absence with grace. "Did you have a good day?" She could not bring herself to add the words "with Emma," but congratulated herself on at least not saying anything negative about the woman. There was no need to widen the rift between herself and Henry any further, and Regina was not blind. She knew what he thought of her. In many ways, he was not wrong.

Henry seated himself across from him and immediately crammed an entire cookie into his mouth. He was ravenous, and she wondered if Emma had fed him anything of substance during their time together. She refrained from asking, it would only make her son resent the intrusion. "It was awesome." He finally replied, reaching for another cookie. "Are you okay?"

She offered a smile that was not fooling anyone, running a hand through her hair. "I'm fine, just tired. Tell me about your day."

Henry gave her a long look - an old head on young shoulders, this child - but obliged willingly enough. In between bites of his supper, he regaled her with an animated - and likely much-edited - account of the day's happenings. Regina knew little of fishing and wished to know less, but her son's enthusiasm was infectious and she found herself applauding his small successes and mourning his mishaps with a moue of displeasure that looked very like an adult version of Henry's own. Oh, Henry. You always brought out the best in me. Which was a particular boon as of late, when Regina had more and more been seeing the worst of herself.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?" She rose and began with slow, sparing movements to clear the dishes. Her rear, thighs and lower back had started to ache, from the recent abuse. Regina was a fit woman, with a figure that turned heads despite her conservative attire and stern reputation, but her marriage had called into play muscles which had not been used for some time. Loading the dishwasher, once a simple task that took moments, was suddenly an exercise in quiet agony. She longed for privacy, Henry's presence the only thing standing between herself and the rest she craved.

"Do you like being married to Mr. Gold?"

His tone was anxious, and Regina paused, before recovering smoothly. "Why do you ask that?"

"I mean, would you break the contract if you could?" Henry, a smart child and one she could hardly keep information from at any rate, understood the more mundane elements of the marriage contract, and spoke of its dissolution in terms of annulment. Regina considered the question with respect and thoughtfulness, a courtesy always extended to her son that she reserved for few adults.

"No." She heard herself saying, almost surprised at the way her tongue tapped against her upper teeth to form the word. "Probably not."

"So you do like him." Henry offered a sideways grin that said he did not precisely "get it," but was pleased to have the answer nonetheless. "Why doesn't he live here? 

Or we could live there. It's weird to have your new stepfather live in a different house. Kids at school keep asking me questions about you two." He frowned slightly, studied the table, nibbled at a chapped spot on his lower lip. Regina longed to embrace him, as she would have were he still the fretful toddler he had once been. To do so now would only increase his vexation.

"I'm afraid I don't have a simple answer to that, sweetheart." She said finally, drying her hands on a dishtowel embroidered with a red apple. "He and I are both very private people. We like our space and have a lot of assets to protect." _That's one way of putting it._

He pursed his lips in an expression of stubborn persistence. "Well couldn't you protect them together?"

She chuckled softly at the boy's tenacity. It was so familiar that she could not hold it against him. "That's the point of the contract, Henry. Would you head upstairs and do your homework? I've had a long day, I'm thinking of going to bed early."

"Okay." He stood and, in a gesture of unexpected magnanimity, hugged her briefly before shouldering his backpack. Regina smiled at his retreating back, the achingly   
familiar sight of the thing she loved most in all the worlds. She heaved a sigh of relief, however, when he was safely ensconced in his room.

Retrieving her own supper from the refrigerator, she waved a hand to cut the lights, bitterly amused by the small show of magic. Whatever was impeding her magic, it was not much improved by lack of rest. Armed with chardonnay and cheesecake, she mounted the stairs to draw a hot bath. The jacuzzi was earning its keep this week.

******************************

While Regina was stepping into a hot bath, the scent of sandalwood and glow of candlelight filling the room; and Henry was puzzling over algebra and his enigmatic stepfather; the man himself was pulling his long black car into his now-accustomed parking space behind the Rabbit Hole. Lacey had called the phone at the shop, a device so infrequently used that dust had gathered on the receiver.

"Hey." He could almost taste the exhalation of smoke in her greeting.

"Lacey."

"Meet me at the Rabbit Hole?" There was a certain frenetic energy in her invitation, a filly high-stepping to draw attention to herself.

"Why?" Gold narrowed his eyes, as if contemplating an ambush.

She huffed. "Just come. I'll make it worth your while."

"Fine." He consented, and hung up. There was an edge of mad defiance to her tone, a sense of flirting with danger, that could only point to his artful queen meddling in matters she shouldn't.

He'd just placed the car in park when his cellphone gave a chirrup from within his breast pocket. He answered it.

"Hey." The same breathy greeting, this time tentative, foxlike.

"Lacey."

"I'm going to be late." There was a throaty hint of chuckle in her voice, a tease that she swallowed to see how far he was willing to go for her. The answer, no doubt, she found disappointing.

"I don't wait." He hung up, pocketing the phone again, and maneuvered the big car back out onto the road.


	9. Chapter 9

Gold found that even feuding with Lacey created no demonstrable difference in her behavior. She hissed and spat like an alley cat, but found her way back to him with the timing and tenacity of a spoiled stray. He began to suspect that was the curse's diabolical mechanism, to place Belle's body constantly within his reach, while her soul remained lost forever. Though she shunned him for several days following his refusal at the Rabbit Hole, the following weekend found her slinking into his shop, all red lipstick and pouting apologies. She drew him into her orbit like a black hole, her total absorption in vice a handy distraction from the realities he preferred to ignore.

"We could go somewhere nice, you know." She informed him, laying on her back atop his counter. She had cleared the space for just that purpose, kitten heels clicking idly as she swayed her folded knees from side to side. Blue eyes studied him, the click of her lighter on thin air a token defiance of his ban on smoking in the shop "Unless you're afraid of her." In recent weeks, her animosity towards Regina had gained a life of its own, lending acid to a tongue which had previously been languid and unconcerned with matters that did not involve satisfying her many cravings. He found it tiresome.

"She doesn't give a damn." He snapped at her. "If you find the accommodations displeasing, you're welcome to leave."

She sulked then, sensing the darkening of his mood, and mewled an apology, setting about to placate him in the ways she knew best.

It was petty, he knew; taunting her with allusions to a cursed memory she couldn't help and wouldn't understand. Cruelty to Lacey wouldn't bring Belle back. But with Regina real and raw beneath his hands, cursing him with every breath but every inch of her alive... Well. It was hard to hold sentiment for Belle's ghost, as he had come to think of her. Lacey was a squatter grown contemptibly familiar in a home he had once loved.

And then the slippage started. Small things, at first, Lacey standing in a patch of sunlight looking lost, running her hands over her clothes as if she'd never seen them before. When he called her name she glanced back at him, all sardonic smile, and told him to stop shouting, she'd be along in a moment.

It showed elsewhere in the town, in small ways. People losing time, with no memories to account for the missing hours or bizarre locations. The couple who had once been Snow White and Prince Charming standing up abruptly from their separate breakfasts, taking one step toward one another with twin expressions of dawning recognition, only to stop the next moment, confused. The dwarf in the pharmacy bursting into sobs at the sight of the hospital's janitor. Ruby, sitting in her window over the diner, staring longingly at the moon.

The curse, in effect too long, balancing on the knife-edge of the Savior's undeniable presence and her equally undeniable obliviousness, had started to wear through. But it was messy, a patchwork effect, growing threadbare in places before sliding back into place like a burn spot on film.

Belle had come through one night, as he worked in his shop, Lacey's presence a peripheral annoyance, like a wasp buzzing around by the jewelry counter. The gaudy emerald pendant she admired fell from nerveless hands as she turned to face him, looking wildly about. When her eyes fell on him, they held a shock of recognition followed by a chill tendril of uncertainty.

"Rumple?"

There was no mistaking her. Lacey had never once called him by his name, and when Gold heard the tremulous joy and anxiety in that voice he acted with an instinctive haste. In an instant he was by her side, both hands clutched in his. "Belle?"

"Rumple. Rumple, what happened? Where are we? Are you-"

"Shh, we haven't much time." He kissed her lips, held her close to him, murmuring words of tragic love and promises of grace he was not confident he could keep. Rumpelstiltskin had never been much of a hero. The Dark One even less. A single tear, shining an illusory gold in the yellow lamplight, gathered in the corner of his eye, trailing down the aristocratic bridge of his nose. He could feel her slipping, could feel the dense compression of the curse reasserting itself. When the minute drop fell, Lacey had already returned. He felt despair open beneath his feet like a chasm and, like emotional vertigo, a warm exhalation that was nauseatingly like relief. He had loved Belle once, and always would. But he doubted she would know him now. In truth, he doubted she ever had.

He fled from that doubt as if before a wraith, because the truth it revealed, if accepted, was too difficult to bear.

 _We haven't much time._ Before he lost her again. Before she was swallowed up by Lacey and he didn't know whether to mourn her loss or glory in the depravity of her dark counterpart.

_Fucking Lacey in his shop, one hand braced on the counter, the other gripping her hip like a vice as he pounded into her… That smirking, red mouth, both like and so unlike Belle's, hissing and moaning out profanities like a cat in heat. He snarled as her curses broke off with a cry, feeling his climax ripping out of him, white hot, wondering if Belle would ever forgive him… Wondering if it would ever be this good again._


	10. Chapter 10

The dark half of the year came early to Maine. The days shortened, growing darker as this world tilted on its axis away from the sun. As evening gathered its skirts and swept across Storybrooke, the wind picked up, the first flurries of late autumn swirling in the air like so many tiny dancers. It was deceptively beautiful, but cold, biting the skin the instant one ventured outside. Gold felt a certain satisfaction with the threatening weather, as it suited his black mood. He sat behind the desk in his shop, brooding alone as Lacey had taken her leave. She'd stalked off disgruntled into the burgeoning winter storm, irritated that her coaxing and flirtations had borne no fruit. Lacey thrived on the fawning esteem of others, accustomed to the patrons at the Rabbit Hole filling out all her empty spaces. But Gold was distracted and not even the very expensive scotch sitting open on the desk was sufficient to tempt her when attention was in such short supply.

Gold hardly noticed her departure. He'd gotten turned around somehow, in a bizarre mirror world where his illicit affair was a chore, and the thought of his wife's skin under his hands near drove him mad. It was never supposed to be like this. He had planned for most eventualities, but never for craving the woman in her absence. He downed his scotch, the fingertips of one hand tracing the engraving on the head of his cane. The metal warmed beneath his touch, and he scowled, pouring another drink.

******************************

Black was Regina's color. To be sure, her fair skin and dark hair lent her a loveliness that was entirely independent of wardrobe; but her mother had taught her to use her assets well and her appearance was a calculated play to her own strengths. While her persona in this world favored somewhat more conservative ensembles than the Evil Queen, the color palate was much the same. Neutrals, sometimes; jewel tones, often; but overall, black. Black was her armor, her comfort zone, speaking both to her stoicism and to her sense of the dramatic.

It was a chilly evening in Maine, but the first Monday of every month had been set aside for the town meeting since time out of mind, and not even Regina's considerable clout was sufficient to unduly alter the traditions of small-town politics. She drew her long black peacoat closer about her as high black boots clicked on the frosty marble of the front steps. The corridors inside the town hall were well-lit but silent, and she assumed this month's crop of dissenters had already gathered in the meeting hall. The collection of inquiries on her desk that morning had been larger and more varied than usual; most of which relating in some way to the curse's worrisome degradation, though of course the authors of those notes had no inkling as to the source of their woes. Most of the problems brought to her were outside the spectrum of a mayor's ability to fix, but in truth she applied herself diligently to as many as possible. Ruling came naturally to Regina - Evil Queen in popular memory, perhaps, but a queen nonetheless.

She ducked into a restroom to check her makeup, which had resisted the elements with its typical veracity. Upon exiting the bathroom, she found herself seized by the upper arm and pulled forcibly back into it.

Her magic flared in response to danger, and she delivered one cracking slap with all the force of her available power behind it. The blow echoed off the gleaming white tile like a gunshot, and was met with a curse in a vicious snarling brogue she knew all too well.

"Gold! What the fuck, you can't make an appointment?"

Gold rubbed his jaw, glaring at her in a way that promised retribution. For a moment their breathing and the rasp of stubble against his palm was the only sound in the sharp silence.

"Regina. Good evening to you as well." His voice was taut, barely controlled.

Hand on the door, Regina opened it by half an inch. "I don't have time for your issues, Gold. I have to go soothe the ruffled feathers of the great unwashed." She swallowed the heart which had leapt into her throat and turned on her heel, but Gold's hands braced the door on either side of her and slammed it shut. The heat of his body against hers was feverish in comparison to her own, which had been so recently chilled by the wind outside. As he exhaled in a sighing chuckle against her ear, she caught the smoky, oaken scent of top-shelf whiskey.

"They'll wait, dearie. We have some things to discuss."

"What happened to your playmate?" She snarled, unable to meet his eyes in the mirror. "I suppose there's a cure for Stockholm Syndrome after all." The pallid modern glare of the fluorescent lights made him look unreal somehow, as if he were not really there. But she felt him coiled and blazing like an ember behind her, and knew it to be true.

He buried his nose in her hair, craving her scent like an incubus, hating the very breath in her lungs for giving life to her smart mouth. "Careful, wife. One might think you'd missed me not at all."

"I didn't," she retorted, and had no time to puzzle over the ring of dishonesty in her voice. The past few weeks had been instrumental in renewing her power, and she nearly recognized her old self in the ebb and flow of magic that again lived within her. She lashed out once more, a flare of power driving Gold back as if she'd shoved him, and turned to leave.

"I think not, dearie." Gold growled, the door slamming shut again beneath her hands, handle stubbornly resisting her efforts at escape. Before she could turn to face him, he pinned her over the sink in a predator's embrace, one hand at her waist, the other at her throat. Her pulse pounded beneath his palm, eyes wide in her reflection's white face. "Be still, your Majesty." The words were soft as silk, compelling in spite of himself.

"What do you want?" She hissed at him, but her head was spinning, once again feeling her extraneous senses overload as he contrived to rob her of her focus. His fingertips traced small circles low on her belly, thumb rubbing the swell of her hip.

"Just answer a question, dearie. Just one, and then I'll leave you to your no doubt fascinating meeting. But answer it honestly."

"Fine." She snapped, seeing no other immediately viable option.

He drew her against him suddenly; the long, lean length of him framing her curves from shoulder to hip. The hand at her throat tipped her jaw back, his lips tracing the shell of her ear as he spoke the question. "Do you really want me to leave?"

She drew in a breath, prepared to agree vehemently despite the protesting tension coiling up from her belly. But Gold's tone caught her up short. "No lying, Regina. Do you want me to leave you? Here? Like this?" The hand that had been caressing her hip teased fingertips over the fabric of her panties, then paused as if awaiting her answer.

Her breath came out in a rush, the edge of a whimper catching in her throat. "No."

She felt the curve of his smile against her ear, the definition of triumph. "That's what I thought."

Her panties this evening were black, much like the attractively cut dress which Gold had bunched against her hips. High stockings and boots left only a few inches of skin exposed, which his fingers explored with avid attention. She trembled slightly in his arms, trying to cope with the reality of her admission and the force of her own desire. He tugged her panties down, questing fingertips finding the treasure they sought unerringly. Regina whimpered and hung her head, unable to look her reflection in the eye even as her body responded to his touch. Gold nipped at her earlobe, dragging her attention back to him again.

"Look at me, Regina." Meeting his eyes in the mirror was like gazing into a furnace. Slow, stroking circles punctuated his words, and she bit her lip, not daring to take her eyes from his lest she look into her own. "Now, if I were feeling unkind, I would leave you here… Wet and aching for it when you go to face those people." Unbidden, a whimper slipped from her throat, and she twisted in his grip, but not fiercely enough to make a serious bid for freedom. A warning nip at her earlobe saw her still again, glaring daggers into the mirror.

"But I'm feeling generous. I'd rather you bright-eyed and shaking when you face your subjects. I want them to wonder what you've been doing, while you remember my hands on you." The hand at her throat tightened slightly, enough to strain her sensibilities but not truly alarm, as he ground his erection into the curve of her ass. Unbelievably, his eyes in the mirror rolled heavenward and slipped closed, and he groaned. Regina could have crowed in triumph were she not focused so wholly on the wicked, coaxing dexterity of his fingers. He rolled his hips into her again, all heat and hardness against her yielding curves. His voice in her ear was harsh, almost a pant, and again she caught the heady scent of whiskey. The words, however, would have been misplaced - if he had not at that moment, stopped the movement of his hand and withdrawn.

"Say please, dearie."

Regina actually mewled, pressing back against his answering grind in a desperate bid for sensation, but still he withheld his touch. "Please, you bastard." She gritted out between clenched teeth, hating him like poison and longing for him like fresh air and freedom. He chuckled darkly and resumed his torment, bringing her to a fever pitch again in moments. The placket of his trousers rasped against her delicate skin, sporting a railspike hard enough to bruise but refusing to take her. The hand at her throat slipped beneath the neckline of her dress, rasp of lace against her fragile flesh echoed in his voice.

"Do you want to come?"

Squeezing her eyes shut against frustrated tears, she nodded. He pulled her roughly tight against him, and the order growled against her ear was half command, half a groan of fraying control. "There's my good girl. Come for me - come for Daddy."

Regina was not a woman to heed commands. She didn't think it would work, but her body obeyed his voice like a well-tuned violin, and knew the touch of its master. She bit her lip till it bled to trap her keen of soaring pleasure within her, with only incomplete success, and she heard him grunt against the flushed curve of her neck - just once, hands grasping the ripe curve of her ass and she felt his rigid cock twitch, thrusting against her erratically as he came. The thought that the Dark One had come in his pants at this - the barest taste of her! - sent a zinging thrill through her and she gasped as her quivering sex clenched once more.

Gold released her, composing himself as much as possible for a man who has just ruined in sexual deviance a suit worth more than a family sedan. Assuming his sardonic smirk like a carnival mask, he looked her over, admiring his handiwork - disheveled, eyes bright, lips parted and slightly swollen, a flush like warpaint over each high cheekbone.

"Perfect." He commented, and his expression darkened as if the assessment offended him somehow. His cane - seemingly less necessary than it had once been - clacked against the floor as he turned to leave.

"Gold." She said, and there was steel in her voice even as she tugged down her skirt.

He paused, listening.

"I'll kill you, someday."

The Dark One chuckled. "You'll try." The bathroom door swung shut on Regina reapplying her lipstick, putting on the face the citizens of Storybrooke expected to see.


	11. Chapter 11

He should have known better. When it happened, the magic of Storybrooke had been on edge for days, curse effects dropping in and out of existence like a bad radio signal. Henry had been spending more time than ever with Emma and the child's faith lent strength to her own as she teetered on the edge of discovering herself. Regina battled endlessly with the blonde woman, Rumpelstiltskin firmly remaining neutral though his reasons now seemed vague. He had promised that Henry would remain in Regina's life, that was all. It was up to her to make the lad want to stay.

All of this happened in a whirl outside, a grey swirling hurricane of cause and consequence, destiny and prophecy. He isolated himself as much as possible, counting on Lacey's obliviousness to shield them both. The pieces were in play and he found himself somewhat melancholy about the situation at this, the eleventh hour. Even Regina was spared from his antagonism, though Emma's antics provided a neat counterpoint to the usual thorn in her side.

After their last encounter, he could not bring himself to face Regina. Her gaze in the mirror had lingered, a splinter in his mind, a restlessness beneath his skin that woke him in the middle of the night with a whisper of her perfume past his sleeping lips. The way she fell apart in his hands, consistent in both hatred and surrender, drove him to distraction. Lacey was no fitting substitute, but he buried himself in her regardless, a literal and figurative vessel for his frustration and ennui. He suspected her of indulging a Sapphic dalliance with Ruby, having found a pair of panties in the bed and breakfast that had once lain abandoned on his own floor. It was comical in a bitter, despairing way, and he let it go. The girl was no longer his, if she ever had been. He amused himself with her, whiling away the hours not spent actively avoiding Regina and watching the clock tick down.

Until that day, of course. Regina crossed a line, as was her habit, and her loaded gun blew up in her face, claiming her son as collateral damage. Snow and Charming had been sniffing about one another for months, yapping like lovestruck puppies and meeting in showy secrecy that fooled no one of intellectual merit. No one expected Emma to break the curse, with an innocent kiss on her sleeping son's brow - no one but Gold, that is.

The timing, however, was less than ideal. He should have been paying closer attention, should have kept Lacey at a greater distance, should have listened to the little voice in his head that warned him from indulgence just this once… He wondered, in honest moments, if he had wanted it to turn out this way. If he had wanted magic to reveal him as a monster so he wouldn't have to do it himself.

For a moment, she had never looked more beautiful - chestnut hair spread out on the pillow in a decadent halo, blue eyes slitted like a cat who has been stroked to satiation, as indeed she nearly had. Her fingernails dug red welts into his lean shoulders as he thrust into her, his own hands twisting into the hedonistically high thread count of his bedsheets. Her whimpers, sharp and coaxing, built to a crescendo-

And suddenly it was her, there beneath him. Her chestnut curls, tangled in disgrace. Her blue eyes, widening in shock. Terror. Outrage. _Belle._

He knew immediately this was no slippage. The revulsion in her gaze had a permanence that was weighty as lead. She pushed him away and he went - what would be the point of anything else? She would never look at him with gentleness again. She would never show him kindness. She should not. He felt a sharp vindication mingling with despair and wretchedness. Now, she knew him for a beast.

"Rumple? …Rumple? What have you done?"

_Crystalline blue, spilling over, spinning out, a perfect storm of confusion and loathing. Her weeping. Her fury._

Something in him shattered then, broke irrevocably and forever. The delusion that he had ever truly loved or even known her shattered into pieces as he watched her tearfilled eyes darken to hate. She loved merely the idea of him, a wounded beast to save - _do the brave thing._ And he had for a time loved the idea of being saved. But only the willing can be rescued, and he had long ago become a willing supplicant to power. That left just one direction remaining for his fervor. "It was never supposed to be like this." What else was there to say?

"How could you do this? Using my body when I'm not inside it? Without my permission?"

He left her, there, sure she could find her way out. There would be no point in staying, he was sure the benevolent denizens of Storybrooke, returned once more to their heroic status, would be delighted to take her under their collective wing. There was nothing more he could do for her. Nothing more he could do to her. Best he run, as he had always done.

He went to Regina, instead - the only person who could be counted upon to hate him more than he hated himself. He could rely on her at least to be alive, to be herself - the same constant flare of vitality and vengeance she had been when he left her, not a newly awoken fairytale version of herself. He raised his hand to the brass knocker, suddenly understanding Graham's need to feel and envying the Huntsman his heartlessness.

He heard the well-oiled click of the deadbolt before the door swung open. He had expected her to look hunted, the evil queen deposed, but she appeared surprisingly mellow.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Just let me in, you bitch."

She complied.


	12. Chapter 12

Regina glanced over his shoulder as he stepped into the foyer, presumably checking for foes bearing pitchforks. The night remained undisturbed - the populace of Storybrooke apparently too wrapped up in joyful reunion to trouble themselves with two (ostensibly powerless) villains. She shut the door, sliding the deadbolt into place, then sighed before turning to look at him.

"She broke it." He commented unnecessarily.

"She did." She replied. Further discussion seemed pointless. Nothing was going as either of them had planned. For all their plotting, dark magic, brilliance both united and separate… _Villains don't get happy endings._

The queen turned and padded, barefoot on white marble, into the den. He couldn't help but stare at her, her attire so uncommonly relaxed that he'd expected to find a wastebasket full of tissues and a box of bonbons on the coffeetable. Instead he found smoky jazz spilling low and languid from the sound system, and a mug of rich amber liquid that upon closer inspection proved to be hot spiced cider. Hard cider. The scent rolled up in steaming curls from the mug, tantalizing. She did not offer him one - perhaps assuming that since he had taken liberties with her body, he would feel comfortable taking liberties with her kitchen as well. But Regina's domain did not invite intruders. The den was as he'd imagined it would be - elegant and stark, a study in contrasts, opulent somehow in its austerity.

Gold glanced up at her as she took the opposing end of the sofa from himself, folding her legs gracefully beneath her. Black yoga pants, a soft, flexible fabric that hugged the muscular curves of her calves. Such a garment was considered modest, even homely here; but would have scandalized the high-vaulted ballrooms they knew well in memory. Of course, Regina had a talent for scandal. Her bare feet, toes painted a deep garnet, were petite and touchingly vulnerable. She laced her fingers together, a large onyx bauble of the type referred to as "poison rings" adorning the middle finger of her right hand, to highlight the noticeable absence of her wedding set on her left. Apparently she did not mock herself with the shackles of their union in her alone time. He couldn't really blame her. Her spine curving back against the white cushion in a graceful arc, she raised her arms over her head and stretched languidly. He observed the way her full breasts pressed against the soft fleece of her sweater with polite interest, though the motion was not for his benefit. Regina was beyond such things, apparently. He wondered if it was due to their location, firmly entrenched in her territory; or if it was a side effect of their marriage. No wonder she was drinking. Magic gone haywire, her son in the loving arms of the woman who abandoned him as an infant, and herself married to the town monster.

"I didn't have to say please to get inside." He remarked.

"I knew if I said no you'd get in anyway." She responded smoothly, curling her hands around her mug. It was a lie, and she didn't bother to give it even the veneer of truth. He accepted the falsity without comment but knew it for what it was - Regina was the type of woman who would cut off her nose to spite her own face. She had fought him tooth and nail for lesser spoils than this, entry into her home, her inner sanctum. If she let him in without a show of force it was because she wanted to - and wasn't that thought an interesting one. He rose, mulling this over while the scent of cider guided him to the kitchen and a steaming kettle. Sweet apple and the scent of cinnamon, rich and familiar on his tongue. This world was nothing like their own, but in some ways she had made it as close as possible. The people of Misthaven would heat their bodies on a cold night in much the same way New Englanders did.

She looked up from a contemplative stare into the middle distance to find him in the doorway, watching her. "Where does the cider come from?"

"I have a few gallons made each year from my tree."

He raised a brow as he reclaimed his seat, somewhat surprised that the infamous tree bore edible fruit, but of course that was an absurdity. Regina's heart was black as sin, but her own nectar was just as sweet. He swallowed, gazing into the depths of his mug as if searching for secret truths.

She read his look and sipped again, plainly relishing the steaming drink. "It was only ever the one apple that was poisoned. The rest…" She sighed, ran one slim hand through raven hair. "I have a high-yield tree that produces beautiful fruit, and no one wants it. People choose to see only the bad, and forget the good." Another sip of her cider. "Apples help prevent cancer, you know." The comment was almost inane, and it was then he knew she was drunk, or nearly there.

Well, she'd earned it.

The cider was heady, but sweet and cloying, lingering at the back of his throat without the punishing burn he craved. As if she read his thoughts, she drained her mug and set it down with a hollow clunk on the ebony coffee table. "Drink?"

He smirked. "I thought we were drinking."

"I feel the occasion calls for something stronger."

That was for damn sure. "Please." The corner of his mouth twitched, the edge of a laugh. She narrowed her eyes at him but prowled over to a handsome cherrywood bar without retort. He watched as she set up glasses on the polished surface, noting the lovely piece seemed nonetheless ill-stocked.

"Don't you have any scotch?" He groused.

"Something better." With a wicked grin that suited her and yet seemed out of place, she retrieved an unadorned artisanal flagon from beneath the bartop. Tipping two fingers of light amber liquid into a glass, she offered it to him.

He eyed her suspiciously. "If you're trying to fob off some bottom-shelf whiskey or harebrained potion on me…"

"Just take it, you pompous ass." She sneered, swirling the liquid in the glass. Startled into complicity, he accepted it.

Tilting the glass beneath his nose, he prepared to sniff with an air of mistrust - but the scent hit him first, an eye-wateringly strong bouquet of apples, oak and the searing heat of alcohol. It made his nose burn and he held the glass away from himself, eyeing it with alarm.

Regina laughed at him, returning with the bottle and helping herself to a highball of the menacing liquor - he noted that while she took hers neat as well, she did not fill it with as generous a measure as his own. "It's calvados." She grinned, tipping the shot back with a delicate grimace. "Apple brandy."

"Your fixation on fruit alarms me." He retorted with a raised brow, before taking a swallow. It burned all the way down.

"Apples." She corrected. "I like them. Misunderstood. Underrated. Often maligned."

"Your childhood trauma is showing," he mocked, "You must be drunk."

"Not yet." She bit back, pouring another round.


	13. Chapter 13

Calvados - especially calvados distilled clandestinely from the apples of an otherworldly tree - is a powerful spirit. In the old world, it would have been called merely apple brandy, without French Normandy roots to draw on for its more exotic title. In this world, Gold thought its name might be Satan. 

_Or paradise._

The liquor was an evil drink, with all the heat and vigor of good scotch, and the sweetness and indulgence of wine. He felt languid, glass heavy in his hand, the air seeming to shimmer with warmth. Though he drank often, taking full advantage of this world's refined distillation processes, he hadn't been this well and truly pissed in years.  


Of course, what better opportunity to get royally plastered than with the queen herself? The royal in question was as relaxed as he'd ever seen her, trading barbs with him as if they were old friends. In a way, he supposed that was true - though hardly friends to one another, they were driven by the same dark impulse, scalded by the same bright hypocrisy from the shining knights and maidens on the other side of the fence. 

"You're a lightweight," she informed him with a derisive sniff, legs stretched out at an angle almost perpendicular to his, lithe frame laying claim to the majority of the white satin sofa. The loose grey fleece of her sweater pulled up over her stomach, toned but soft and yielding as she lounged against a throw pillow and laughed at him.

"Oh aye?" He scoffed, draining his glass - numbers uncountable behind the first. "Well." He glanced at her, half-formed train of thought derailing entirely as his eyes traced the white expanse of skin below the hem of her sweater. He leaned over her and snatched the bottle from her limp hand, careful not to touch her. "Well, you're a dreadful host. My glass is empty."

"You're going to regret that in the morning." She vowed, indicating his newly refilled glass with an outstretched finger. When he ignored her, she scowled, sitting upright and taking the bottle back. To his surprise as much as her own, she slipped one leg over his and straddled his lap, haunches resting on his thighs. She gripped his lapel and forced him to look at her, a little calvados overspilling the jostled glass and running in a gleaming rill down the slick upholstery. The bottle disappeared behind the sofa. "Gold. Look at me."

"I could look nowhere else, your Majesty." Meant to be a cold shot of sarcasm, the growling brogue sounded like an endearment - or a threat. _Fuck._ He felt his control slipping, calvados running through his veins, hot and sweet. He was hyper-aware of her warm weight in his lap, the slight shift of her muscles as she demanded his attention, the tickle of her hair against his collarbone as she leaned forward to take the glass from his hand and drink.

"What are we going to do?" She asked with uncharacteristic earnestness, brandy gleaming dewy on her lips. "We can't stay in here forever."

"It's not a wholly unappealing option." He murmured into the glass as he took it back, draining it. Her lipstick smudged the edge, barely. He shut his eyes. 

"Gold." She bounced, a little, as if she were kicking an obdurate horse. Wanting attention. Demanding his focus be on her, as if it were not laser-sharp already. Impatient Regina, who knew how to ride. _Fuck._ He dropped the heavy glass - it clunked, harmlessly, to the plush carpet beneath them. 

"Regina." He exhaled, the sound exasperated and harsh. His hands gripped her thighs, slim digits pressing into firm flesh wrapped in black cotton. She jerked at the unexpected contact, and he shut his eyes again. _Fuck._ "Could we perhaps postpone the doomsday discussion for a less inebriated moment?"

Her eyes narrowed, and he could almost hear her thinking - well-oiled cogs and wheels ticking slowly by as they calculated the precise manner of his demise. Or the demise of his pride, at least. The smile that unfurled over her lips like a banner was part triumph, part satisfaction - a cat licking cream from its mouth; or a tiger, blood. 

"Why?" She purred, all smugness and black velvet, with a deliberate roll of her hips. "Distracted?" His erection, heretofore staved off by sheer force of will, surged to life so fast he feared an injury. He had never before allowed Regina even the illusion of control - she was a siren, want of her thrumming under his skin like a live wire. 

"Only somewhat," he rasped, burying both hands in her hair and pulling her lips down to his. 

There was something about Regina that had always made him feel as if he was drowning. He had kept his distance from her, for decades, scathing and cruel, the space between student and master electric with spite and tension. Small doses, buffered by mutual loathing, usually protected him from the lurch and shudder of reality when she touched him, or looked up at him with eyes that had been wide and trusting, once. 

He felt the impact now without a failsafe, fingers tightening in her hair, holding on lest he be swallowed entirely. The touch of her hand, sliding over the angles of his jaw, the narrow length of a collarbone, popping buttons free with nimble fingers... Her teeth, closing over his lower lip in a bite that was more aggressive than amorous, leaving the barest hint of a metallic tang behind them... The scent of her, making his head spin as it always had. Time lurched and shuddered along, the clock ticking on the mantlepiece keeping erratic time with their breath and heartbeats. 

Somehow he'd wrested her clothes from her, hands that had gripped and twisted grey cotton now running greedily over bare skin that gleamed in the mellow light. His shirt and pants were open, her mouth attached like a vampire to the pulse point at the base of his throat. He gasped, head dropping against the sofa back. She slipped a hand between their bodies, stroking his rigid shaft with a languid touch, nipping the sensitive skin beneath his ear to ensure she had his attention. _I could look nowhere else, your Majesty._

"Do you want me, Gold?" She hovered above him, his cock and every muscle straining to take her, her thighs quivering with the effort of restraint.

His hands clamped like iron over her hips. "Fuck, yes."

She smirked down at him, in that moment purely herself, the Evil Queen in checkmate. She rocked her hips down for a moment, teasing her wet heat against the head of his cock for the space of a heartbeat before drawing away again. He groaned out loud in frustration, and she leaned forward like a benevolent dark goddess and hissed the words in his ear. "Say please."

"You're a vicious bitch." He snarled at her, scarcely believing her audacity - or how arousing it was. " _Please._ "

Regina rode him, then; pushing him back into the sofa and sinking onto him without further preamble. She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut, and the embers in the hearth roared to life. The wave of magic prickled his skin and set his hair on end, and inside her his cock throbbed. His hands cupped her ass as her hips ground down against him and for the first time as he touched her, his hands shook. 

Passions burned deep in this woman, in many ways defined her. He should have known that a single touch would see her burst into flame. Gold swore, his mouth on her neck, tasting salt and the bittersweet tang of expensive perfume. "Fuck, Regina..." 

"Rumpelstiltskin..." Her voice was a husky whine, summoning the beast forth from the madman, a low insistent moan that sent tingles down his spine and straight to his groin. God this woman could fuck, and was abominably aware of her own appeal. The knowledge that she knew what she did to him, and liked it, was maddening for many reasons. Somehow everything that was between them, a hundred years of tit for tat, rivalry, greed and desperation, distilled to its purest essence when he was inside her. Her power was at its most beautiful when, in her moment of climax, she lost control of it. Shimmering auras surrounded them, gleaming red and jewel-bright green, violet and shining, iridescent black. Her skin glowed with a thin sheen of sweat, colors painting her a masterpiece, her head thrown back as she cried her pleasure and triumph to the empty room. He could do little but watch her in awe, and spill his seed inside her as she wrested pleasure from him. A thing of beauty, indeed.


	14. Chapter 14

Morning in Storybrooke dawned quiet still, though in the miserly grey light its good citizens shuttled back and forth between the sheriff station, the library and Granny's; trying to organize themselves into a spear of vengeance despite the inherent chaos. They would call it justice - heroes are not very good at being honest with themselves.

Meanwhile, the scene in the mayoral manor was much the same. The embers in the fireplace had burned low, leaving the room slightly chilly and with a smoky tang on the air. Regina curled beneath a throw blanket on the floor, surrounded by cushions robbed from the sofa, mugging with a vacant expression at Gold.

Gold chuckled, unable to help himself despite the rather dull pang somewhere beneath his ribs, at Regina's impression of Belle upon her awakening. 

Her eyes opened wide, glossy with crocodile tears, and she parted her lips in a shocked **O**. "Rumple! How _could_ you?" Her voice high and thin, she dissolved into false tears, drooping her head dramatically to hide her quaking mirth. 

"You're a fucking bitch." He chuckled, because there was nothing left to do but laugh. Shattered porcelain can't be fixed. 

Regina sobered, propping herself up on her elbow to look at him. They had never gone to bed properly, the psychic hum of turmoil and impending danger outside too strong to let them do anything but drink and needle one another all through the long watch of the night. As if either of them were capable of genuine sleep with the other present - a viper sleeping in the bed of a scorpion. Untrustworthy, yet, somehow, a safer bet than anyone else. "She never understood you, you know."

"I know." He stared into the middle distance, exhaling smoke from a cigarette, and glanced at her. "You did."

She laughed at him. "How could I not? We're the same, you and I. Always wanted our happy endings, no matter the cost."

He half shrugged in grudging assent, amused with the humor of the damned. "If we'd gotten them, how long do you think it would have taken before we smashed them to bits?"

The question was riotously funny, in these circumstances, and the uneasy tremble of compassion dissolved into laughter instead. Gold's internal pendulum swayed, off-balance with confusion and an intoxication that was partly from drink… and partly not.

"Ah, Regina." He reached out, tucked a strand of hair away from her eyes. "I could love _you_ , perhaps, if you were anyone but who you are." His sarcasm sounded flat and tinny, a note hit badly. 

She scoffed at him, by all appearances unwilling to even entertain the idea. But her eyes stayed on her fingertips, toying with the embroidery on a cushion. "If I were anyone but who I am, you would have killed me years ago. Probably out of love."

Abruptly she stood, turning on her heel in the direction of her bedroom and her battle chest of sheath dresses and matte lipstick. It was time for the queen to put on her armor. Feeling his eyes on her back, she turned and spared him a glance.

"This is what we do, Gold. We fuck, and then we go right back to the lying and the manipulation and the endless struggle to cheat one another out of happiness. Don't make this more than it is."

He stared back at her with a silent indulgent smile, as if she were imagining things. They both knew better. 

"Get up and get dressed," she called over her shoulder as she mounted the stairs, derriere in black panties making the watery sunlight through the bay window somehow more tolerable. "We don't hide."

The false smile twitched into a genuine smirk. "Of course we don't, dearie."


	15. Chapter 15

It was absurd, embarrassing, the ease with which they were taken. The verdant lawns of the mayoral manor were silent in the misty morning, branches of the apple tree reaching for the sky like twisted hands. Regina flexed her fingers, feeling magic spark. The house was protected, of course, but though it could have been breached at length none had tried. That alone was peculiar, and yet...

She had expected them, like most heroes, to attack from the vanguard, or meet them on a public battlefield of their choosing to glean the praise and appreciation of the populace. 

But Emma Swan was not most heroes, and she taught them to think their way around corners. Shame, that. 

The footsteps came first. Strange, from the wrong direction - or more than one. Regina would blame her decades of powerless soft living, Rumpelstiltskin his exhaustion, each of them cursing themselves and the other roundly in the echoing judgment halls of their private thoughts. Neither of them thought to turn in time. 

Apparently Regina was viewed as a bigger threat, because it was her they targeted. Gold wondered absently, crazily, whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. After all, she was as he had made her. 

Charming was as burly as he had always been in comparison to the petite queen, rough hands gripping her hard and wrenching her arms behind her with a violence that suggested he had wanted to do this for a long time. Dark eyes flashing at the pain and insult, her hands crackled and flared, but the prince was close enough to speak into her ear. She could not burn him without setting herself alight. 

Reflex is an odd thing. We never notice it, give no thought to it, until it acts in our stead - controlling our bodies without leave from our minds, the _marionettenspieler_ hidden inside our muscle and bone.

Reflex carried Gold, in a twisting pillar of smoke, from the grass of the mayor's front lawn to the paved path on which Charming stood. A tiny flash of gold in the milky light, and a small but wickedly sharp knife (the same knife he had used to cut off Regina's La Perla in her office some time ago) met the Prince's skin with unerring accuracy over the carotid artery. He was satisfied to hear an audible gasp from all three royals. 

Magic was easy - anyone could kill with a fireball, or a curse. It took a certain disrespect for one's fellow man to kill with the hands, a certain willingness to embrace excommunication from humanity to feel someone's last breath shudder out of them. Royalty - with some notable exceptions - never dirtied their hands if they could help it. But Rumpelstiltskin had been a peasant once, and peasants were sneaks and brawlers. 

"Release my wife," He said, almost pleasantly, though his teeth gritted hard in fury. "Or I will slit your fucking throat in broad daylight." When Charming hesitated still, Gold added as an afterthought - "In front of your wife and daughter."

"Such hostility," Regina smirked, stepping away from her captor and rubbing her wrists.

"Oh yeah." Gold muttered, and watched the fireball grow in her hands with a visceral thrill. 

"Stop." Emma raised a gun, a thing almost unheard of in Storybrooke - even the Huntsman rarely wore a weapon while on patrol. She cocked the hammer with a decisive click. "Regina, stop. I don't want to have to shoot you, you raised my son."

Regina froze, the fire flickering, a look of anguished indecision on her face. 

Gold raised a hand, flicking it in the Savior's direction to knock the gun out of her grip, but at the blunt square nails of his fingertips, the magic wavered and died. 

"Wha-?" Stunned into complacency, the fire between Regina's uncertain palms fizzled out altogether.

Taking advantage of the moment, Charming did what he did best, and hit something - the base of Gold's skull, knocking him unconscious to the ground. 

Looking on in dismay, finding herself outnumbered and literally outgunned as the soulless barrel of Emma's 9mm still stared her down, Regina took a last glance at Gold and spirited herself away.


	16. Chapter 16

Rumpelstiltskin sat once again in a cell, contemplating homicide. This time, however, there was no magic ink to free him, only a wayward wife who may or may not have his best interests in mind. The clock on the wall, which he could not see no matter how he craned his neck, ticked irritatingly closer to midnight - his internal clock and the silver of starlight through the window more accurate than the plastic and steel monstrosity at any rate. 

The white hats had apparently - and not without some mirth - decided a gelded warlock did not merit their attention for the entirety of the night, and so had retired to Granny's. He suspected they were at this moment waking the miserable old bat and demanding a hearty feast of fried food and subpar lager for the conquering heroes. Conquering indeed, wrestling a man of slender build with no apparent magical protection and a bad leg into a jail cell. Resentment boiled within him, and frustrated magic, trapped beneath the surface of the curse's rippling remnants, sparked at his fingertips. 

Heels clicked quietly on the linoleum, and he glanced up, only somewhat unsurprised to see Regina. She slid into the station like a viper, smoothly confident with her own powers intact despite the current status of his own. She bent in front of the cell, peering at him in amusement as he said nothing. 

One slender hand slid down the steel bar, fingers curving lightly around it, nails scraping in a barely audible whisper. Her hands, small and white and capable of a destructive power that could level entire kingdoms, were an endless source of fascination. They would look lovely on the spinning wheel, gold gleaming into existence between nimble fingers, but he had never bid her learn properly. It was a waste of such talent. He stared, mesmerized, unable to fathom how he could find her so alluring and still want to choke her. 

"I could just leave you in here." She purred, tilting her head as she contemplated the idea. "See what they do with you. Maybe they'll string you up in the square like the old days." Her eyes lit up, mouth curving in a grin of pure festive delight.

"Regina…" He warned, voice a low rumble. 

"Oh fine," she sighed, pouting reproachfully, eyes large and parodying innocence - badly. "You never let me do anything fun."

"I never _let_ you do anything at all." He scoffed.

She straightened, retreating a half-step. "Alright, stand back."

He stared incredulously. "You're going to blast it? With me inside?"

A jangle of iron punctuated his disbelief as she pulled the heavy ring of skeleton keys out of her purse. "No, the door opens inward. What is this, amateur hour?" She unlocked the door and swung it open, stepping back. 

Immediately he pulled her to him, hands sliding greedily over her curves, suddenly ravenous for her. She met his onslaught with a surprised hum trapped in her throat, and gripped the lapels of his jacket, losing her balance. He backed her into the deputy sheriff's desk, stepping between her thighs as he parted them roughly, papers skidding across the desk as she squirmed on the steel surface - and wouldn't Emma Swan just love that, the thought of his bitch queen, the thorn in everyone's side, writhing in delight on her very own desk. 

_~mine?~_ The word bounced around in his head, echoing weirdly in an unfamiliar drone even as the concept of it made him hard. **His**. As if Regina could belong to anyone. But, if there was anyone… He pushed the thought away even as he pulled her tighter against him, taste of her pulse pounding in his mouth, sweet with lust and pheromones, making him ache to take a bite. His hands bit deep instead, fingers bruising rounded flesh as he thrust fully clothed against her. _Like a callow youth -_ "Fuck, you drive me mad." The words tripped over his tongue unbidden, and he hoped they would lie there silently, stillborn, unacknowledged - but the look on her face told him they were hale and hearty, naked truths bared to the sunlight before their time. _Don't make this more than it is. ___

__He released her, just barely, one hand still splayed over the small of her back, a lock of her hair twined around his fingers. It would have looked a tender pose, if not for the smeared lipstick and the intent to devour written across his hawkish features._ _

__"What the hell?" She murmured, suddenly feeling a prickle of alarm dance between her shoulderblades. Time was running out before their inevitable discovery._ _

__"You'd look delicious behind bars." He growled. "Or against them."_ _

__She glanced down for half a second before meeting his eyes squarely, ignoring the flush in her cheeks. "Perhaps later. The Charmings are on their way - let's go."_ _

__"One moment - " He reached beneath the deputy sheriff's desk and retrieved his cane, swinging it with a carelessness that announced its necessity was somewhat diminished. "Now we go."_ _

__Not a moment too soon - belated heroes clattered into the room a few ticks of the hideous clock later, eyes falling on the open cell door, the disheveled desk and the barest wisp of violet smoke._ _


	17. Chapter 17

Gold's cabin was perhaps not the most ingenious of hiding places, but given his preference for solitude and the virtual nonexistence of his business records, it sufficed. It would cost Storybrooke's avenging angels some small delay chasing their tails to locate it. The deed, of course, was tucked safely away in the tiny vault beneath the mayoral offices - just one of Regina's several bolt-holes, a trick he had taught her: _Always keep them guessing._

They would be found, here, eventually, without the powerful magics required to cast a cloaking spell. With magical energy on the fritz, neither thought it a fruitful endeavor to attempt such a casting until things stabilized. But for now, the cabin was a safezone, nestled in the silent dark woods. There was time enough for recovery and plotting. But first - 

"You left me in there." Gold was burning, the shame of capture mingled with the fury of watching his own magic fail him even as the queen's flourished. Her ever-present magnetism drew his focus, captured tigress prowling the narrow confines of the cabin.

"It was dangerous!" She retorted, turning her head so he wouldn't see her smirk, as if that would render him ignorant of its existence. 

He rounded on her all the same, tone growing louder, harsher. "You left me in there, Regina, for sixteen hours." He gripped her upper arms, long fingers closing like a vice. His silvered hair hung in his face, his eyes hooded and dark, words growled out an inch from her lips like the rumbled warning of a fast-approaching storm. "I ought to bend you over that table and cane you raw."

She raised a hand, fire blooming in her palm like a rose made of wrath. "Want to give it a try?" 

Furious, he wrapped his fingers around her throat, the fireball crackling in a blaze despite the way her pupils dilated as she looked up at him. He squeezed; slow, deliberate, the way she would if she held his heart in her hand. The fire in her palm guttered out, but the one in her blood kindled, her lips parting in a gasp. She had a body like a violin, curved and rich and exquisitely formed, and he played her as a virtuoso played. They were a binary star, two halves of a whole stretching one another into new shapes as they fought in vain to escape orbit, dark brilliance going supernova.

He pushed her back onto the table, papers and instruments of unknown origin scattering around the eye of their storm. Every candle and hurricane lamp in the cabin flared to the ceiling with a sputtering hiss, light pouring from the cabin windows to illuminate the woods around them, shadows of tree branches bouncing back and painting crazily demonic shapes on the walls. Again came that sensation of falling, of drowning, of tumbling down an incline at reckless speed, straight for a sea of fire. _Fuck, you drive me mad._

Buttons ricocheted carelessly across the wooden floor, bouncing and rolling towards the hearth as he ripped her blouse open and her panties off. He whispered poetry profaned in her ear, hand again on her throat, his breathing growing labored as he stifled hers. She twisted her hips toward questing fingers, her nails digging into his wrists, clawing to draw one away, dragging the other closer. 

"Say please, dearie." He growled. She glared up at him, and for a split second he thought that in a strange dichotomy she would mimic the phrase he'd heard from another not so long ago…But Regina was no prancing tart in kitten heels, and two syllables from those dark-stained lips were very different from anything that had yet been dared by the rest of the world. 

Enunciating carefully, she mouthed the words: " _Fuck **you.**_ "

Gold felt the challenge like a sudden intoxication, a tingling rush that started at his crown and burned down his body; liquid euphoria. He unbuckled his belt, leather and steel scraping against the fragile skin of her inner thighs. "Oh, aye, if you like."

She cursed him roundly behind clenched teeth but could not hide the spark of ferocity and covetousness in her dark eyes. The hand keeping pressure on her throat tightened ever so slightly - her breaths coming shallow, little panting gasps that made her squirm and strain - as he slid his cock slowly inside her, inch by agonizing inch. She was slick for him, this game of supremacy stoking her inner fires with a perverse but undeniable fervor. She mewled softly, a strangled sound, as he buried himself to the hilt in her and stilled, studying the play of candle light over her face, the way her back arched a little with each tiny gasp as if she could will more air into her lungs. 

"Feels like drowning, doesn't it?" He hissed, and began to move within her, a slow, tortuous rhythm that promised no immediate respite. Her nails in his wrist bit deep enough to draw blood, tiny crescents welling red, as she swallowed beneath his palm. He lightened his grip to a firm caress, thrusting hard into her; and she bit her lip, stifling a moan that tried to spring forth at the rough possession of his touch. He bent and lightly licked her mouth, startling a gasp from parted lips. 

"Don't you dare." He warned. "I want to hear you." Eyes wide, she nodded, dark gaze rolling back as he gripped her hip with his free hand and tilted her pelvis upward, finding the angle she loved best. The woman was a loaded gun, and he brushed against her trigger with every thrust into her molten core. 

He wanted it, was greedy for it - every whimper and moan that she'd denied him for the bitter victory of it, every muttered dark murmur that could have been his name or the worst kind of curse. Every breathless sob when he changed his rhythm, or let his hands wander from their intended path - prolonging her journey, postponing the inevitable as the note her body sang climbed higher and higher. For once, she gave it to him - let herself surrender in ways she had not, for reasons she could not fathom. 

He stared, mesmerized by her, rasping out the word as if it were foreign to him. " _Magnificent._ "

With a strangled sob, she came enraptured, spine arching up as a cry from her lips set the candles leaping bold and bright once again. Her skin, shining and burnished golden in the light, was scorching under his hands. He released her throat, instead letting his fingers dig greedily into her hips, and held on. Her body gripped him like a velvet vise, and he thrust hard into her, chasing his own climax until it overtook him with stirring force. 

"Fuck, Regina," he bent over the table, bracing himself on his forearms, narrow sides heaving like a bellows. He looked over her sated form, languid and pale, an occasional quiver running up her thighs and over her belly. 

"So." His voice was businesslike, but a tiny smirk belied his amusement and softened the space between their exhausted and vulnerable bodies. "How shall we reclaim Storybooke from its Charming new authorities, Madam Mayor?"

She smirked back. "It's your Majesty, now."


	18. Chapter 18

Regina traced her fingertips over the familiar lines of the photograph, the glossy surface worn but still carefully kept. A school portrait, wallet-sized, that had recently inhabited her purse. She stared at it in the dusky shadows of pre-dawn, perched on an armchair in the window, striving toward the gathering light. Her eyes couldn't make out the image yet - it was early enough that even birds were silent - but it didn't matter. She knew every bit of it by heart, anyway. 

Gold had been asleep, for once, their hostility toward one another tacitly dismissed in the face of a greater enemy. It had always been thus - in times of peace, they wrestled and hissed, leaving small wounds, drawing blood a drop or two at a time. But when danger reared its head from outside their orbit, they suddenly stood back to back, with nary a blade reserved for the inevitable betrayal. Even now, beneath the shadow of this new threat, they did not entirely trust one another - but there was no one they would have trusted more. 

He emerged from the black cavern of the bedroom fully clothed, unwilling to concede to the inherent vulnerability of the pre-dawn hours. She spared him not a glance, still focused on the picture of her son she held tight between her fingers. 

"I lost a son once, too." He said quietly, standing with his hands in his pockets five feet behind her. The air around her was heavy with sorrow, he dared not intrude upon it lest they both go under. 

"He's not lost." She gritted out. "They stole him from me."

"Aye." He said, retrieving his cane and tapping it on the floor. The sound seemed to break her focus, and she looked up at him, pupils dilating to find him in the shadowy room. "Let's get him back, shall we?"

She laughed, a short, bitter sound. "And what do you propose, Gold? Shall I file a custody suit with the Charmings? Perhaps the cricket will testify in my defense, _but I rather fucking doubt it._ " The words were snarled, her eyes lit from within with savage fury. 

Gold crossed the distance between them, calmly took hold of her shoulder, and shook. She surged to her feet, leaning into his face as if about to bite; before his smirk pulled her up short.

"That's it," he purred, praise accompanied with a sharp tap to her collarbone. "That's the Regina I know. Use that anger. Burn them down."

Her lips, pressed into a thin line, slowly relaxed and she smiled, an expression terrible and beautiful, a goddess of destruction and revenge. This was her true nature, his queen. This dark and eager force straining at the reins of affection and morality, the yawning hunger to seek out vulnerability, and crush it. She would never be satisfied, she would never feel whole, and she would never, ever stop.

He admired that in a woman.


	19. Chapter 19

Henry reminded Gold a great deal of his own son.

The boy was slim, with thick dark hair and a faintly olive complexion that in Baelfire had been from Milah. He carried himself in much the same way Bae had, hurtling headlong into danger, refusing to back down from his honorable but infantile concepts of right and wrong. 

Gold had time to reflect on all of this, with the boy up close and personal, while holding onto the lad's collar with one hand and his belt in the other. This death grip on the physical was only a precaution, however - a shimmering golden line, bonds of magic, held Henry firmly on the side of Gold himself and the woman he could not help but think of as his mother. 

"Mom, no!" The lad shouted at Regina, straining against Rumpelstiltskin's grip, still too much a child to consider turning his fists on a man. In a year, perhaps less, he would be ready. But for now he still saw himself in the valley of boyhood, an insurmountable difference from the domain of the adult. The delay in perception was of great use in the situation Gold had found himself in. 

The golden line clearly demarcated a Mexican standoff between two parties, with the town heroes on the other side. The Charmings, off to the side, shouted irrelevant things and were (like him) essentially useless in resolving the tension for good or ill. 

The queen was deaf to everything but her own blood in her ears, and the crackle of fire in her hands. She had her son, safe, whole, she had won - one small portion of the victory she longed to devour whole, but a victory nonetheless. "He is _my_ son," she snarled, leaning forward like a prowling animal, "And he is coming with me."

In the Enchanted Forest, people fled like stampeding cattle before that snarl. The sight of fire in her hands would have the old trampled by the young, lovers separated, mothers and fathers abandoning children. Her white teeth flashing in displeasure, enunciating doom - there was not a heart in all the land that did not quail before the Evil Queen. 

But that was then, and they were here, and Emma Swan did not quail, but pulled out a gun instead.

Regina was blind to it, enraged, a mother lioness roaring her fury and challenge at the poachers who dared steal her cub. Gold felt a cold chill creeping up his spine, a desperate and piercing awareness of all the ways this could go wrong. And still he said nothing. He knew she would not hear him. 

All might have been well, still, if not for Henry. The boy reminded him so painfully of Baelfire. Bae, for all his dreams of nobility, was a selfish lad. He was headstrong, stubborn, never lost his thirst for glory though he refused to learn its price. Bae was the type of boy that would run headlong into a gunfight. And Henry… Henry was just like him.

He broke free, finally, shaking himself like a dog before dropping, deadweight, in Gold's grip. Unprepared for the assault on his balance, his bad leg gave out, and an instinct for self-preservation had him let the boy go. The same instinct had him snapping his fingers, the gold barrier that had lain between the two parties cracking around Henry with the speed of a bullwhip. The boy fell to the ground, limbs bound but otherwise unharmed.

In hindsight, it was an obvious thing. One he should have seen coming, if his blind spot hadn't been larger than life. It could have been prevented, if his magic had been stronger, if Henry had been wiser, if Regina hadn't been nearly insane with rage.

But it was not prevented. It happened. The gun went off. 

Emma knew, immediately. The gun fell from nerveless fingers, and Gold realized in that moment she had probably never before fired it at a living target. She paled and stared at her son's adoptive mother, as crimson began to drip through the expensively tailored coat and onto the ground. "My god, Regina… I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

What can you say, when you've shot your enemy, who loves your son?

Regina did not react for a long moment. The color drained from her face along with the expression, leaving it blank and vaguely childlike. "…I…?" She seemed puzzled, as if a bullet tearing through her lower abdomen and out the other side was a possibility she'd never considered. As is the case for most people. 

"Regina." Gold's eyes grew huge, and then he was at her side, catching her as she slumped to the ground. She'd pressed a hand to her stomach in an absent effort to staunch the bleeding, but blood was seeping through her fingertips and gushing from the exit wound. He lowered her to the ground, his own hand pressed over hers as Henry thrashed and screamed behind them. "Regina, stay with me." _You mad bitch. Stay!_

He extended a finger to Emma that trembled with fury, and never before had a slim, bloodied man kneeling on the ground seemed so very capable of genocide. "If she dies," he warned, and though he spoke in a hiss every syllable was audible, "I will kill you all. And then," he pointed at Henry's bound form, "I will kill him."

With a snap of red fingers; he, Regina, and a still-struggling Henry disappeared in a billow of burgundy.


	20. Chapter 20

Apparation takes its toll on magic. Gold was growing weary the moment they arrived in his shop, but there was more yet to do. He laid Regina on a cot in the back, wiry frame moving as carefully as possible to avoid jostling her injury. He pressed a cloth to the wound, but she had lost too much blood, and something twisted inside his chest - violently, and did not let go. 

Henry bucked and kicked on the hardwood floor like a fish out of water. Gold added physical bonds to the magical ones with a snap, including a gag, and tossed the boy into a storage room that was well-lit and clean. He was certain that Regina would have something to say about his mistreatment of the lad ( _if she lives_ **quiet** ), but he'd had quite enough of foolishness and had no time to waste. 

He knelt beside Regina's still form, placing both hands over the gunshot wound, dragging them back and forth over the injury, waiting for power to flow forth and wash the damage from existence. But his hands felt cold, and she continued to bleed. 

How typical, as of late, for his magic to fail him at precisely the moment he needed it most. Some cosmic balancing of the scales was demanding he account for all he had put Regina through when magic first returned to Storybrooke. In this scenario, she would pay, as well. 

The dagger's magic, however, was older and more powerful than even his own; stained and untouchable by nearly anything, certainly indifferent to mystical static. Swearing, he brought his blood-streaked fist down on an ornate box beneath the counter, crimson smearing the sigils carved into its surface. Through some hidden mechanism or magic, it sprang open to reveal his greatest vulnerability. 

He took his hand away from her wound, which caused the hole to gush blood, dark and sluggish, as if there was not much left inside. Her face was deathly white. He grabbed the dagger and pressed it into her hand, curling her bloodied fingers around it. "Regina, you have to command me."

"What?" She stared at him, eyes unfocused and glassy. All the same, her hand tightened around the hilt of the blade. 

"To heal you!" He snapped, voice more urgent than she had ever heard it. "You have to command me to heal you, I can't summon the magic myself. Do it now!"

Regina raised the dagger, the few inches it took to bring it up an effort, her wrist hanging limp though her grip remained tight. "Dark One." She said slowly, lips bloodless and numb. "I command you… Save my life." 

Her eyes glinted, something like triumph in them though they were hooded and dark, before they rolled up and she lost consciousness entirely. 

"Fuck!" He raised his hands, feeling the magic surge up through his body as if he sucked it from the earth itself, and brought his hands down to Regina's placid form. A concussive force rolled out from them, a visible shockwave of orange and gold, green and white. He watched the tear in her flesh close, a ragged hole knitting itself shut, smooth and perfect as if it had never been. Color returned to her face, cheeks flushing with new vitality, and as the earth beneath him hummed he waited for her to take a breath. 

She did not.

"Damn it Regina," his fingers curved around her biceps, he pulled her up, shook her. "Get up!"

Her eyes remained closed, lashes resting on blooming alabaster, strangely peaceful though an alien panic ripped through him. He did the only thing he could think of, the most absurd and unlikely thing anyone could have done in that moment. 

Cradling her with one arm beneath her shoulderblades and a hand at the back of her neck, he kissed her. 

Prisms exploded everywhere, an arcing spectrum racing past them and ever outwards, a wall of magic sweeping across the town. The red of poppies, vibrant yellow, emerald green; the deep, secret indigo of twilight. Color filled the room, and just as suddenly as it came, it was gone. She came to life under his hands, as she always did, lips parting as she drew her first new breath against his. 

"Rumpelstiltskin?" She seemed lost, unsure of where she had been or what had transpired. 

"Welcome back," he rasped, and slumped back on his heels, exhausted.


	21. Chapter 21

Powerful healing magics aside, being shot can be quite exhausting. Regina fell asleep very shortly after awakening, into a natural rest that Gold noted with relief was perfectly timed to fend off the possibility of having to explain himself. 

He let himself into the spare room and shut the door behind him, dusting off a three-legged stool with a handkerchief before seating himself. The boy, who had been still but wide-eyed on the floor, started kicking again. 

"Henry. Come here, lad, let's have a talk." With a wave of his hand, the boy's bonds disappeared. Though he had lain motionless for a quarter-hour or more, Henry had no difficulty in leaping to his feet and springing toward Rumpelstiltskin with grim determination. 

With a sigh, Gold waved his hand again, and the boy was buffeted by a gust of power that knocked him back on his heels again. "Wait a moment, Henry. This doesn't have to be difficult." 

With great difficulty, Henry reined himself in. Gold recognized the discipline as hard-won. "Where's my mother?" The lad demanded, with a fierce glint in his eye that Gold suspected was more nurture than nature. He spoke with the air of someone who was accustomed to having his questions answered, and Gold was both amused and mildly impressed. Regina's cub would be a force to be reckoned with one day, if he managed to avoid getting himself killed. 

"Regina is fine. She's asleep upstairs." He paused, cocked an eyebrow. "Emma is also alive, if you were wondering."

"I'd noticed." Henry said scathingly, legs braced as if for a fight. Gold had known the time was coming soon that the boy would stand his ground, apparently that time was now. He sighed. "You said you'd murder me."

"Ah. Yes." Gold inclined his head. "So I did. I was a little vexed." The words came out in a harsh snap, pleasant expression a thin varnish over impatience. "You see, you'd just nearly killed your mother."

Henry scowled, biting his lip, a mulish expression. "No, I-"

Gold waved a hand, bored of the conversation already. "I know it wasn't deliberate. But you placed yourself where you had no business being, and the consequences were grave. Do you understand, Henry?" 

Henry stared at him, quiet, uncertain in the gloom of the storage room. "Why didn't she just talk to them?"

"That is not your concern. But I will humor you, and tell you only that your mother would do anything - anything - to have you home safe, and talking has not yet presented itself as a viable option."

A long silence followed, and Gold could almost hear the cogs of that young brain turning. Henry lost a little bit of his innocence, today. "You still tripped me, threatened me, and locked me in a closet." He complained.

Gold smirked. "Tell me, Henry. Had you been free, where would you have been?" 

"With my mom!" The answer was reflexive, spit out as if it were insultingly obvious.

The older man nodded. "Precisely. You would have been by her side, when there was nothing you could do. Asking questions, wasting precious seconds when I had only seconds to spare. As it was, your mother barely survived. If I had not acted as I did, she would not have survived at all. You have no cause to trust me - frankly, I don't care if you trust me - but can you set aside this one grievance?"

Henry bit his lip, a habit that he seemed to have picked up from Regina, then slowly nodded. "Okay. Just for that, I forgive you." He put out his hand, and Gold shook it gravely. _The deal is struck, young prince._

"Very well. You're free to roam about the shop, but do not attempt to leave." At Henry's challenging look, Gold reiterated: "There is a protection spell keeping us in, and them out. If you attempt to breach it, I will be most displeased." His gold tooth flashed in the dimness and Henry was reminded of precisely who he stood in a dark room with. He took an involuntary step back, and Gold turned away from him, stepping through the doorway.

"Mr. Gold. One more question." He asked, addressing the man's back.

Gold glanced over his shoulder. "Yes?" 

"What was with the cursebreaker? The second one?"

"I beg your pardon?" Gold asked quietly, though he'd gone cold. 

"You know. The rainbow. True love's kiss. Who was it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Gold receded into the shop, cane on the floorboards a dismissive metronomic rhythm. 

Henry glared stubbornly after him, chewing on his curiosity and disbelief.


	22. Chapter 22

The queen had emerged from her slumber, irritable and a little fuzzy on the details of her recovery but none the worse for wear. Looking her over from a safe distance, Gold could find no difference. During her period of unconsciousness, the dagger had been removed to a more discreet location. It wouldn't do for her to get ahold of it when she wasn't bleeding to death on his floor. 

She had been absent for some time, but the occasional raise of her voice from the other room and Henry's responding murmur made him glance at the clock, wondering how long it would be until - 

"You did what to my son, exactly?" She prowled out of the side room where Henry had been reading (or sulking), startlingly soundless in six-inch heels and less than six hours from a mortal wound. Her fingertips sparked, but he was interested to note that a fireball had not yet manifested. Regina's patience in matters of revenge was the literal stuff of legend, but that patience was hard-won. He had never known her to delay her rage even by a moment - ever. 

"Bound him, gagged him, locked him in a closet." Gold replied mildly, not looking up from the brass gadget he was meticulously polishing. In his peripheral, an orange flare bloomed. _Ah._ There was the fireball. 

"Would you care to explain why before I turn you into barbecue?" She asked, almost pleasantly, though the toe of her expensive shoe tapped once on the floor, giving away her impatience to immolate him. 

He set the gadget down, turned to look at her, steepling his fingers under his jaw. "Because you would have died right in front of me if I hadn't." His voice was low, oddly strained. "And in front of Henry."

She stared at him for almost a full minute, fire in her hands guttering out, curling her hands into fists before releasing them again. He glanced at the motion, noticed for the first time that when she had left the manor for battle, she had been wearing her wedding ring. His brow raised almost imperceptibly as he met her eyes. 

"Would you care to roast me now, dearie?" 

Regina dropped her hands, took a step back. Her dark eyes looked confused, face set in a pale mask to hide that confusion. She shook her head slowly, just once, an involuntary action. And then she turned on her heel and began to walk out of the room.

His voice stopped her at the doorway. "Are you going to tell me about the second half of the curse, Regina?"

"…What?" She breathed the word in on a gasp, not even speech, the sound of her lips mouthing it in shock. Glancing to where Henry was clearly listening with his nose in a book, she shut the door and strode back to Gold, demeanor decidedly more demanding. "What are you talking about?"

"I think we're well past coyness, dearie." Gold retorted, standing. The movement brought him into her stride, and she took a step back from him, closer to the wall. When she took another, he advanced again. "I want to know what you did," he hissed, dizzy with anger and uncertainty and the scent of her hair. "And I want to know how you did it."

"I… split it." She replied, licking her lips, a nervous gesture he hadn't seen since her girlhood. "There was a way to break it, I knew that. But I wanted to protect myself… Even if something took my revenge away, I still wanted another chance at a happy ending." Her eyes were shining, a quaver in her voice. "So I made it into two parts - one that might break for Emma, and give everyone their memories back. And one… that would only break for me. To bring magic to Storybrooke."

Gold spun away from her, one thin hand over the lower half of his face as if he could literally hold in the words he wanted to shout at her. Regina leaned against the wall, exhaling a breath she'd forgotten she was holding. 

"And what, exactly, was the cursebreaker?" He asked quietly, casting the question over his shoulder like a grenade. 

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "How did you even know? What is this about?"

" _What_ was the _cursebreaker,_ Regina?!" He shouted, rounding on her again.

Regina put up her hands between them, a spark in each palm, warding off the intensity of his focus. "A kiss! Jesus, Gold, it was a kiss. True love's kiss, if there is such a thing. Obviously not for me."

He leaned down, one hand on the wall above her head, the other braced at shoulder height. Tobacco-brown eyes positively smoldered with a storm of emotion she could not begin to decipher - threatening, angry, afraid. 

"Aye, well," he said scathingly, on the delirious edge of panic. "I think you cocked up a bit on the wording, dearie."

The queen's eyes were round as saucers, more innocent and guileless than he had ever seen them as she took in information she couldn't process. "The failsafe wasn't supposed to activate unless I got my happy ending…" 

"Imagine my chagrin at the trespass," he growled, "Apologies for saving your life."

Pushing past him, Regina sucked in great gasps of air, lungs laboring as if under the weight of history's most restrictive corset. She wrung her hands, twisting her fingers together in a Gordian knot, unconsciously fiddling with her wedding ring as she paced in a short route around the room. She was muttering to herself. _How? Why? What went wrong?_ All the things we ask ourselves in the face of the unexpected, categorizing catastrophe. 

Suddenly she stopped, sharp heel leaving a dig in the dark floorboards as she made an abrupt turn to look at Gold. He was leaning against the desk, arms crossed, watching her pace. For a long moment they stared at one another, tension crackling like ozone before an electrical storm, Regina near the wall again, Gold motionless a few feet away. 

Regina cocked her head at him, a predatory expression lighting her eyes and burning the confusion away. Now it was the queen's body language that spoke of danger and hostility, and Gold received the message with perfect clarity. 

"Why did it break, Gold? Why you? Why… now?" She asked, words slow and deliberate, her spine straight to keep the quaver out. "You kissed me, didn't you? I was dying, and you kissed me, and it brought me back. Why?"

Gold said nothing, glaring at the floor as if he'd set it alight between them. His hands mimicked the motions hers had made, curling into fists at his side, uncurling, flexing fingers grasping for purchase.

" _Why?_ " Regina snapped, voice like a whipcrack. With a growl he crossed the room, laid his hands on her hips; pushing her back against the wall, eyes searing her with a desperation that she had not thought to associate with him until that moment. 

"Because _I love you_ , you bitch." He rasped, burning with anger and want, and mad with it. "I _love_ you. I want you; I crave you. And if you ever leave me I swear I'll fucking kill you."


	23. Chapter 23

For a long moment, Regina merely stared at him. Her dark eyes explored his, wide and flickering rapidly from one iris to the other, searching for something beneath his gaze rather than meeting it. The silence between them was a chasm, howling like the damned, and then she scoffed. "Bullshit." The word was flat and harsh, sounding unnaturally provincial on her painted lips, the way the little scar on the upper curve pulled taut as she snarled driving him to distraction. 

"Can you think of a more convenient truth, dearie?" Gold snarled back, pushing away from her. "I'd love to hear it."

Regina scoffed. "I can't believe you're even entertaining this farce. You've never loved anyone or anything in your long and illustriously miserable life. You're the original narcissist." 

"You cannot fathom the profundity of my surprise." He retorted scathingly, clearly humiliated. This was a man who had once been nameless, poor, lame, disgraced - always reviled, now universally loathed. His first wife, happy and mocking in the arms of better, braver men. His son, aghast at his cowardice. Regina herself, laughter bubbling from her throat like wine, rich and darkly amused at his momentary misguided fervor for Belle. His skin crawled with shame at the acknowledgement of his weakness. He was at his ugliest and most petty when his pride had been wounded. "True love's kiss is a gift, dearie; given when it's needed, because the magic drags it out like it does everything else. Magic isn't interested in sense, in reason. It demands passion. Blood, fire, sacrifice."

Of course, he knew it was truth he'd spat like venom; but he fully expected the sentiment to be one-sided. What reason had she to love him? The very idea was laughable.

Still leaning as if winded against the wood paneled wall, she suddenly rounded on him. " _You._ You absolute _schoolboy_..." Regal in her rage, she raised a hand as if she'd slap him, then halted, clearly summoning the will to master herself, and instead aimed an imperious finger of judgment at his chest. "This was supposed to be about _business._ "

"Surely you're not fool enough to think that anything between us has ever been about business." That at least was true. They were defined by strife, spite, constant one-upmanship. If the space between them wasn't constantly scarred by battle lines, the desert of loneliness at their backs marked out in smoking wreckage, how could either be sure of their place in the world? 

Hands trembling, she pulled off her rings and threw them at him. Her aim was surprisingly good, and he turned to one side, avoiding a diamond-cut on his cheekbone by barely a blink. Her naked fingers curled and she took a threatening step toward him, features white and livid with rage. Her palms sparked but he thought she planned to kill him with her bare hands. "You have cheated me for the last goddamn time, Rumpelstiltskin." Regina hissed. "This is _not_ my happy ending."

"Isn't it?" The question brought her up short. 

"What?"

He invaded her space, forcing her to meet his gaze, voice low and urgent. Regina felt the fire in her belly kindle in spite of herself, and bit the inside of her cheek to command her expression. "Isn't this what you wanted, all along? To be challenged, excited, liberated?" He dragged a fingertip lightly over the curve of her jaw and she snapped her teeth at him; and he smirked as she proved his point. "Would you have ever truly been happy with a simple life, a simple boy and his simple plans? How long before the darkness in you overflowed and drowned that happy home?"

She shoved him viciously away. "There _was_ no darkness in me until Daniel died!"

"I knew your mother, Regina; you and I both know that's a lie." His tone was calm but the words were calculated to hurt and he knew she knew it. "You were born with something missing. _Just. Like. Me._ " 

"Bastard!" She threw herself at him, hand raised to strike, and he caught her wrist, arm around her waist drawing her flush against him as he pressed her back into the wall. Her shoulders hit the wood and plaster hard and she brought her knee up; but it was an obvious move and he deflected it with his own. 

Everything went wrong then, a flurry of strikes and counters, lashing out and pushing back, waves crashing on a break - and the hand gripping her wrist twisted tight enough to bruise and held her claws aloft, and the teeth at her throat were meant to make her bleed but instead she writhed, and she shrieked curses at him but her mouth transmogrified the bitter words into a moan instead.

"Did you want everything tied up in a neat little box like the Charmings?" He taunted cruelly, watching tears sparkle beneath her lashes - frustration, fury, despair. "Love's a messy, ugly affair, dearie. We don't get happy endings, only the ones we deserve." 

She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head to the side as if by refusing to look at him she could deny the veracity of his words and the way her spine arched into his touch, jasmine blooming in darkness. 

"Fuck," He uttered, watching the pulse in her neck with the avidity of a vampire. "You are the worst kind of temptation, Regina." He lowered his lips to the spot, feeling her skin hot and velvet-fluttering under his tongue. She whimpered and arched up, fingers twining roughly through his hair, then gasped and pulled back. 

"Henry!"

Gold flicked a hand at the door, hearing the satisfying rattle as the deadbolt slid into place. "I suppose you'd better keep quiet then." He growled, and tugged on her own hair, baring her throat once more.


	24. Chapter 24

Defensive spells require focus; an ever-present barrier in the back of one's mind, sustained by the caster's force of will. It is, metaphysically speaking, not unlike holding up a shield against any external threat; and requires similar reserves of strength, endurance and concentration. 

But buried to the hilt in his murderous wife, Gold could think of nothing else. She writhed under him, flat on her back on his desk - a position reminiscent of their first union, though this time she was unbound, nails and heels digging punishingly into his skin. She wanted him to hurt, payback for his admission - an unallowable moment of weakness. That was fine. Her ruthlessness was one of the things that made the admission true. 

"That's it, you hellcat bitch," he growled at her, as her eyes slipped closed, a low pleading moan escaping her despite her best intentions. "Come for me."

His long fingers teased at the crux of her where they were joined, rubbing small quick circles as he muttered obscene endearments in her ear. The queen panted, facade falling away from her in shards of porcelain pretense as she climaxed with a cry. He clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound and she bit him, tasting her essence on his fingers, and arched again. He shuddered, following her into release. 

Afterglow, ever a patchwork affair between them, was decidedly short-lived. Regina sat up and dressed herself quickly, darting glances at him from behind the silky black curtain of her hair. "I still think you're insane." She muttered quietly. "But I'm willing to entertain the possibility in lieu of a better explanation."

Gold barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping, buckling his belt without reply. It was so unlike Regina to call a cease-fire, even a temporary one, that he half-expected another eclipse or roiling universal curse to rock the town. A few heartbeats passed, and none were forthcoming. _Hmm._ "How unexpectedly decent of you."

"Don't make me drop a house on you." She hissed scathingly, and turned on her heel, determinedly ignoring the flush in her own cheeks. She flipped the lock open and gripped the handle on the door, wrenching it open. Gold raised his gaze at her indrawn gasp, taking in the empty shop beyond. _Fuck it._

He realized the truth, or accepted it, before she did; standing very still behind his desk, waiting for the inevitable reprisal. 

"He left." She announced, stepping back into the doorway, eyes wild. "He ran away!" 

"Aye. He must have slipped out when the protection spell faltered." She glared at him, but he met the glare with bland nonchalance. A man could hardly be blamed for such a thing. He had warned the lad. 

Regina turned to dash toward the front door, bent on finding the boy and dragging him back come hell or high water. Gold caught her arm, and her palms sparked as she rounded on him, but no attack followed the warning reflex. _How interesting._

"Any attempt to force the lad will result in more violence, Regina; you have to see that."

"I don't-"

"Please!" He barked; and she quieted, watching him, eyes large and dark. 

"The curse is broken. You can't use that on me anymore."

He huffed a sigh, acknowledging the fact. "I know. I'm asking. Please give him time. I'd rather you not bleed on my floor any more today." 

Regina stared at him for a long moment, her mouth twitching; then slowly grinned, white teeth gleaming. She laughed, her head tossed back, a full-throated thing of mirth and irony. "Sure, Gold. Fine. I'll wait. But not for long."

"Fair enough." Gold replied, nearly sickened by the intensity of his own relief. "Now, something to fill the hours till his return. Come with me."

His confidence in Henry was curious, and Regina tilted her head at him, then scoffed at the directive. "Not a chance, husband mine." 

Gold looked her up and down, gaze appreciative and warm; fervor not tempered in the slightest by the fact that he could still smell her on his skin. "Much as the suggestion interests me, I had more academic pursuits in mind. I need your help. Come." He held out a hand. 

Regina had been many things to Rumplestiltskin, but she had been his student first. Unable to resist her scholarly acumen and curiosity, she took his hand and retreated once again to the rear of the shop.


	25. Chapter 25

_I was always the queen. You were the one who added "evil" to my name._

The decision, when it came, was startlingly painless. Regina stood stationary in the back of Gold's shop, a glowing orb of iridescent violet light rotating slowly between her fingers, as the man himself carefully deposited things into its orbit. The items - a scroll, a feather, a strand of raven hair she suspected was her own - were absorbed into the sphere and vanished, but the light pulsed and shifted, hinting at their existence deep within. It was a spell she had seen before, its foundations similar to magic her mother had worked, yet she had never seen it take this form. 

"What will you do when the boy comes back?"

Her mouth twisted, a bitter smirk to hide how much it hurt that Henry had run off again. "Are you so sure he will? I don't seem to be on his list of favorite people at the moment."

Gold quirked a brow - his gift of foresight was sporadic and often cryptic, but never wrong. It astonished him that after all this time Regina often forgot the veracity of that fact. "Aye, he will. And when he does he'll come bearing terms."

Regina sneered. "My son, the herald. I'll roast them in their beds if they think to use him to bargain with me."

A narrow fist slammed down on the table, the violet light flickering as Gold's unexpected ire broke her concentration. "They will, Regina. He's the only weapon they have and they will use him shamelessly, and he will let them, because they are his family and because they are heroes and he has never known any better. He'll let them because he's only a child and he trusts the pages of a storybook more than you."

"Bastard," Regina spat, and made to close her hands, canceling the light; but Gold took her hands in his and lent his power to hers, the ball growing and turning a deep wine red. 

"Wait. Look."

Divination had never been her strong point. Her intuition could spot trouble a thousand miles away, and she could, when she chose, look in on those who troubled her from afar. But concerning herself with the big picture, with the trials and woes of others, had never been a feat at which Regina excelled. Still she peered into the light, squinting slightly, ignoring the way the roughness of his hands against hers sent a little thrill up her rigid outraged spine. 

There were pictures moving in the light, red on red, shifting shadows hard to discern but undeniably there. The images, when they came, were more a suggestion than anything else - a whisper of truth in her mind rather than a face she could recognize or a voice she had heard before. 

"This is a memory sphere," Gold muttered softly, and she could feel the gentle press of his mind against hers, his power flowing through her and into the sphere, carrying her memory, all the weight of her intellect and instinct, along with it. The sphere grew larger still, spreading their hands around its thrumming circumference, and then just as quickly began to shrink, becoming smaller and harder like carbon compressing into diamond. Indeed, beneath the pressure of their combined magic it became a gem, and with a flick of his wrist a ruby the size of a walnut was set into an antique platinum setting. He held it out to her.

"For what?" She demanded. She had heard of memory spheres before, but never attempted to make one. They required two sorcerers, a bearer and a secret-keeper, and Regina had always preferred to work alone. Still, she accepted the gleaming object, fastening it around her ivory neck and trying to ignore its hum as the magic grew accustomed to the feel of her skin.

"It will revert to its original form when it's needed." Gold replied shortly, maddening as he had ever been with his inability to provide a straight answer to her questions. "Now listen." He leaned over the worktable, his expression deadly serious. "You have fought me at every turn for decades, and typically I find that appealing." 

Regina ignored the backhanded compliment, but relaxed her posture, willing herself to listen - the look on his face carried a gravity she had rarely seen on him before. "But?"

"If you ever expect to have your son back again - wholly yours, not a pale imitation of family, shared with the Charmings, but yours entirely - you will need to play a long game. Before you know it, he will show up on that doorstep bearing a message from the heroes. They will expect you to step down from your position, live out your days on the outskirts of town. _Take the offer._ "

"Excuse me?" Ruling came naturally to Regina. At best it had been a thankless position, at worst an unmitigated nightmare. But she had been born with the desire to lead branded on her already, named queen by a mother who had never known anything but ambition. Storybrooke was at best a play kingdom, a dollhouse full of paper people with their petty, small-town problems. It was not a challenge or a calling by any stretch of the imagination. But it was hers. Every inch of it, every tree and white clapboard house and perfect stretch of pavement that disappeared when a traveler looked upon it - hers. She had made Storybrooke in her own image, the perfect reflection of her victory, and she would be damned if she would give it up and go into the west, an exile. "Not a chance."

"Listen!" Gold commanded, and though he had shouted orders at her many times, always with the expectation of obedience that seemed native to the Dark One, never before had she sensed the urgency behind the imperative. He seemed genuinely on edge, and she wondered again if his assertion had been true. _Love?_ Was this what love felt like, all fire and thunder and broken glass? It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, unlike anything she had ever wanted or expected or asked for, and yet... And yet. 

He was speaking low, serious, dark gaze commanding her attention. "Listen. Ingrained in every Dark One is the desire for self-preservation. It's innate, in the very fibre of our being from the day we awaken to the darkness. We all learn, in time, who our successors will be - and I am telling you now, take the offer. Play their game, wait patiently. And in time it will all be handed back to you again, and you will be the one wearing the crown of laurels. Henry will run to you as if his life depended on it, because you will be the hero. They'll all turn to you to save them."

Regina tilted her head, eyes narrow and flashing with a heat that was part furious distrust at the obviously audacious assertion, and part pure greed. "Why?"

"Because in a few years, give or take - the next Dark One will be Emma Swan."

It was simple - too simple. Firebrand though she was, Regina was well acquainted with patience - she had been waiting for most of her life. Waiting for freedom, waiting for love, waiting for vengeance - always still and coiled, shoring up her reserves and power as the years passed her by and left her untouched. The pleasure that rolled through her with the revelation was low and secret, curving her lips in the faintest of smiles as her eyes narrowed. She studied the face of the man who had once been her master, searching for any sign of a lie - he had been able to conceal truths from her once, but no longer. He had stripped himself bare beneath her gaze, and there was no backing down from it now. He was speaking honestly. Emma Swan would - somehow, through some perverse and mistaken machination of fate - take his place. 

She took a breath and the air was sweet, her lungs unlabored. The sharp heels that had begun to nag at her calf muscles transformed into clouds, her form suddenly weightless. It was all too perfect. The vision came clear - Emma, handily dispatched by her own misfortune, the town delivering itself apologetic and fervently grateful back into Regina's waiting hands. Henry, eyes full of trust and adoration again, as they had been when he was small. And through it all, she remained unbent, unbroken - only an exile, patiently passing the days in silent meditation and a healthy amount of research. A vacation did sound nice, after all. 

"What happens to you?" She asked suddenly, turning to find Gold watching her, something like avid approval warm behind his eyes. 

"That, dearie, is entirely up to you." He replied, not without a sense of chagrin. Placing his fate directly into Regina's hands not once but twice in a single day was a little much to swallow. "When a new Dark One takes power it inevitably alters the minds and memories of those around them." He tapped the memory sphere, now a ruby at her throat. "But that will ensure your memories stay your own. You can either use your knowledge of this conversation, and what's within the sphere, to bring me back - or not. But I think you'll find your side of the battlefield a little lonely without me." That was it, his last trump card, dangling his power and solidarity like a carrot before a recalcitrant mare. To his shock and immense relief, she bit.

"Relax, Gold," she murmured, running a fingertip over the silk of his tie. "I've gotten used to you, now."

"Is that so?" The question was a low rumble, the sorcerer working to maintain an expressionless facade, denying entirely the way his heart thudded against his ribs when she touched him. 

Regina gripped the tie, was about to drag him forward to meet her lips when a sharp but hopeful rap sounded at the shop door. Glancing over, she saw her son through the old-fashioned pane of glass, bearing a scroll and a small white flag. 

"Curtains up, old friend," she breathed against his lips, releasing the tie and smoothing her blouse and skirt as she backed away. "Time to give them a show."

"Indeed." Gold smirked back, falling into step behind his queen as she answered the door.


	26. Chapter 26

There were many things about Regina that were deceitful. She deceived herself on many levels, refused to acknowledge until they were forced upon her many truths that she found inconvenient. She deceived others without compunction, save a very few exceptions - her even white teeth and softly curving lips hid her silver tongue. And while no lie lasted overlong in the fire of her rage, with the proper determination, she could keep a secret - such as the one hanging heavy from her throat, all her reserves of patience shored up behind her eyes, preparing her wrath to lie in wait like a slumbering dragon until it was time again to emerge.

But the tears she shed for Henry were genuine, every crystal drop spilling from long lashes a burning opal of loss and betrayal and sorrow. The Charmings were surprisingly civil - believing they had won and confident in their victory as all self-proclaimed heroes are, they stood off to one side and watched with the faintest suggestion of guilt on sanctimonious features. Regina clung to her son, the lad already almost as tall as she was, fingers clinging like ivy to his sheepskin-lined jacket, cheek pressed against his dark hair that still had all its little-boy silkiness. "I love you, Henry." And the declaration was a sob, evil queen shattered into pieces for all the world to see. Her heartache was pure, raw, absolutely real - but the little pragmatic voice in the back of her mind couldn't help but be pleased that the do-gooders were all present to witness it.

"I love you too, Mom. It's not that far, I can still visit you, and-"

"I know. I know." She cut him off gently, drawing back with a smile that belied tearstained alabaster cheeks, unable to bear hearing the platitudes in his creaking young voice.

It had been decided that they would reside in Gold's cottage for the time being, the property being sufficiently dreary and far enough from the town center as to be considered exile. Henry would be allowed to come and go as he pleased - Regina's stipulation for an amicable - or at least, bloodless - surrender had included her son's free will to choose with which mother he resided. He had chosen to stay with the Charmings first, heroic lonely heart crying out to learn more about the family that had lost him first. Regina loathed them for it, but she could not begrudge him.

Gold waited in his Buick, engine running in the cold morning air, blowing forth great plumes of fog mingled with exhaust. Off to the side, Ruby's arm protectively around her waist, Belle cringed and cowered, forever the wronged party. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, illuminating a matched pair of handprints on the hood of his car, and he could not help but sneer. After a few more moments of fond goodbyes and a bit of glaring, Regina joined him. Slamming the passenger door shut, she pressed the antique heat-coil cigarette lighter and rummaged in his glovebox for the pack she knew would be there. Henry's back was turned as he walked away - he would not see her light it.

Gold raised an eyebrow at her as she exhaled a plume of smoke into the car's cabin, lipstick a stain on the filter of the cigarette. The scent of her perfume mingled with the smoke was appealing in the way that all vices are appealing, and he swallowed, canting his eyes forward again as he put the car in gear. "Alright?"

"Just drive."

Her office was cleaned out, relevant belongings in a small box and a valise from the manor in the trunk along with the promise that their other things would be gently packed and sent along after them. Gold's shop was padlocked, his business office dark; the town shaking off reminders of their presence and moving on with the foolhardy confidence of all unbalanced and overly optimistic communities. Time would tell. For now, barring Henry's absence, she felt the forcible relief of her burdens as a physical lightness, somewhere between euphoria and disorientation. It had been many an age since she had found herself this free of responsibility, this unshackled to expectations - with the objective simply to be still and wait. The town center fell away, and then its outer limits. The road, and the woods, and she was still adjusting to the sensation when Gold quietly shut and barred the cabin door behind them.

"Drink?" He offered her, lifting a box to the small bar and opening it.

Still feeling vaguely dreamlike, Regina wrinkled her nose. "Don't you have anything but scotch?"

Wordlessly, he pressed a glass of calvados into her hand. She raised her eyes to his and, for the first time in their long and harrowed acquaintance, offered the smallest of genuine smiles. Gold smirked back, taking her hand - which she permitted with an uncharacteristic languor that spoke more of mischief than complicity - and led her away into the den.


	27. Chapter 27

Gold woke sometime in the chilly hours before dawn, coals in the brazier dying down to a sullen red. Sitting up, he flicked a hand at them, casting an eye over the still and silent form beside him as the embers flared to life. It was strange, having her in his bed - but not as unbearable as he had imagined it could be. Regina's presence was dangerous and always would be - but if one were to speak fairly it was no more dangerous than her absence. It was the two of them against the world now, and to pretend there was nothing about her sleek and warmly fragrant body in his bed that pleased him would be an outright lie.

Was this love, then, all he could hope for? A patchwork affair, cobbled together from the pieces that were available to him, gaps filled in with possessive determination and a pinch of spite. Trust that was so unreliable it could be called faith, decades of competition and conflict, a passion so all-consuming that sometimes he felt literally blinded by it, senses drowning in her. A crooked love for a crooked man. It made sense somehow. The corner of his mouth quirked in a smirk as Regina shifted in her sleep, hair tousled on the pillow, murmuring softly in some dark dream.

 _We don't get happy endings, only the ones we deserve_. It suited him fine.

The queen was a restless sleeper, as disruptive in his bed as she had ever been in his life. The duvet had slipped from her white shoulders, revealing the smooth fragility of her collarbone and the creamy curve of one breast. The soft vulnerabillity of her bare skin was a reminder of earlier activities, his shoulders suddenly smarting afresh with the feel of her talons in his skin. Lust flared in him as the embers had, throbbing hot and urgent beneath his skin. Leaning over her, an incubus in checkmate, he captured the dusky peak of that pert breast between his lips, tongue flickering gently. Regina whimpered but did not wake, thighs shifting restively beneath the sheets. _Sleeping Beauty, indeed._ His smirk returned in tribute to the irony.   
  
The room had been cool when he awoke but the brazier had warmed it, ruddy glow painting her skin in shadow. He swept the blanket aside with a deliberate gentleness that masked his impatience, fingertips finding the crux of her and stroking, feather-light. Her breathing changed, another step on the ladder toward wakefulness, but he forced himself to remain in control and exercise patience. As he had told her often enough, timing was everything.   
  
Long slim hands smoothed over the velvet of her thighs, gently parting them. Regina stirred in earnest now, a questioning hum beginning in the back of her throat. His expression balanced on the edge of greedy anticipation as he knelt between her legs. The stroking fingertip, already gleaming, gently parted her, pressed against her pearl, and rubbed. Firmly.

Regina came awake with a gasp, spine arching slightly as she pulled air into her lungs as if she had been drowning. She looked down at him, wide eyes caught somewhere between confusion and arousal, and he met them smugly before lowering his head and laving her core in a hot greedy stripe.

"Jesus, fuck!" She uttered in a sleepy rasp, head dropping back onto the pillow as her eyes fluttered shut.  
  
He teased her entrance with two fingertips, slowly invading her awakening flesh, motion growing smooth and deep as she kindled. His mouth on her was deliberate, insistent, but he paused long enough to chide, "It's not polite to call another man's name in bed." At her pleading moan, hips twisting and bucking beneath the firm grip of his free hand, he returned to his work.

One of the things he had always admired most about Regina was her single-minded pursuit of her desires. A true hedonist, she seized at pleasure greedily and without regard for restraint or expectation. The taste of her utter debauchery on his tongue, thighs quivering in desperation, and she had the audacity to lower white hands and tangle them in his hair, pressing his mouth hard against her sex as if she owned him. Her hips bucked forward as if she could not help herself, and he could feel her tighten beneath him, a spring coiling tight. Her nails scraped against his scalp, releasing him to fist in the blankets as she whined, and he felt dizzy, the breathy sound of her voice tingling down his spine and pressing his hips to the bed in a thrust that was pure animal reflex.

"Oh, oh fuck, please," she gasped, quaking as if she would simply fall to pieces beneath his hands. He curved his fingers inside her, stroking the velvety softness of her inner wall, finding the spot he sought even as his mouth sealed over the crux of her and sucked. She shattered, spine arching, a cry on her lips, nails sinking greedily into his skin as if she could prolong her own ecstacy by creating pain. "Fuck, I love you..."

He froze. The words were a breathless gasp, coming on the tail end of a stream of profanity that would have made a pirate blush. But he knew Regina, inside and out, knew how to read a lie on her body and taste it on her skin. This was a truth, finally uttered, wrung out of her like a confession of sin. Of course. Far be it from his queen to make it easy on him. And it was in her nature to admit sentiment only to those who showed her obeisance. It was the only way she felt safe.

He pulled himself up till he was leaning over her, leg paining him not at all. In tampering with the curse she had linked their magic as the magic of soulmates - in recent months, when they had been separate or at odds, pain had flared to life as his magic flickered and failed. But together as they were now, her honesty still fresh, it was stronger than ever. The brazier flared and illuminated them for a moment, dark eyes meeting darker still, soft and nearly awed. He kissed her, as there was nothing left to say, and slipped inside her body in one smooth thrust. She mewled, twining her limbs around him to hold him close and reducing his rhythm to short, hard, desperate movements that made his head spin and had him drawing up like a bow in short order. He kissed her again to stifle the groan on his own lips, the heat of her mouth and the way her tongue teased at her taste on his ripping his climax from him in an almost painful rush.

The brazier crackled, flames finally dying down as he held his weight over her on shaking limbs and panted. "God, Regina. I love you."

She offered the small smile that was beginning to be familiar, a mild variation of her trademark smirk that was disarming in its sweetness. "Perhaps I won't be quite as bored out here as I'd imagined."

Gold smirked back, tugging at the blankets against the chill herald of dawn. "I intend to make sure of it, wife."

"That's 'your Majesty,'" she corrected mildly, suffering the blanket to be drawn over her and curling sleepily into his warmth.

"Of course, my queen," he murmured softly, her drowsy hum of approval the only response.


	28. Epilogue

The names and faces change, but in the end the stories are always the same. People fight and die over the illusion of division, the elusive concept of individuality and uniqueness, but in the end the stories look the same no matter who's telling them. Something as small as a change in perspective can put a crack in the mirror and shatter the illusion.   
  
Her time had come and gone, Regina restored to authority neatly and with minimal bloodshed. She had managed even to exterminate the darkness in Emma Swan without killing the woman, a feat of cunning that had gone unnoticed as it masqueraded as heroics - the eyes of the Charming family dewy with relief and blind to the crystal she pocketed that contained the raw power once removed from the woman. Gold quietly reopened his shop, and if no one came in for business, well, that was to be expected. The pair kept to themselves, the outskirts of town suiting them; and waited in complacent placidity for an irresistible opportunity to present itself. Their proximity to one another kept their edges sharp, rivalry still as acute as ever though now existing alongside the relatively newfound attraction.

On the subject of attraction, Gold found himself drawn inexorably to the sparkle in Regina's dark eyes, despite the way the world seemed to be tilting on its axis at the present moment. Her face was pale, but seemed lit from within by some irrational, overjoyed spark. She wore the hesitant smile of a woman who would have died a thousand ways before expecting the truth she bore, but was thrilled beyond imagining to discover it. The tilt of her head, one part defiant, two parts hopeful, gave away an urgent and unrecognized need for his approval that nonetheless stirred familiar yearnings in them both. He was still enough to notice that she trembled, the only thing moving his irises as he searched her features, the pulse thrumming rapidly above his collar. She stirred restlessly, awaiting his response, for in her hands there was a tiny, white rectangle of plastic.

"How did this happen?" He asked, his own voice sounding distant, hesitating on some break.  
  
Regina raised a brow at him, mouth quirking in a smirk despite her uncertainty, tone as dry as she could make it. "The usual way, I expect."   
"I thought..." He could not finish the sentence, but she answered anyway.  
  
"So did I. Apparently cursebreaking has its side effects." Her voice wavered, unsure; he watched her posture change, watched something hard and determined slide down behind the softness of her eyes. "I'm keeping it. You don't have to. But I am."  
  
He found his voice, though it was something more like a sob, a broken sound from a man who had believed his entire life he was broken, before discovering suddenly he had been whole all along. "Regina," He took her shoulders, touch heavy and impressing upon her the seriousness of his words, "I have never in all my days heard better news than this."

The small uncertain smile that had been her first gift to him graced her lips again, curving into trusting, contented fullness as he kissed her.


End file.
